Religion Under Contract: The Regulation of Religion and the Making of Hinduism in Colonial Trinidad PDF Download

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ISBN: 9781321033816
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Languages : en
Pages : 339

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Book Description
This dissertation analyzes the role of the category religion in the regulation of the lives of Indian indentured laborers in colonial Trinidad from the mid-19th to the mid-20th centuries. It contributes an on-the-ground, detailed history of the ways in which the colonial regime and its subjects in Trinidad helped to produce iterations of South Asian religions. Looking at the establishment of policies to regulate public ritual, statutes outlawing witchcraft, and the effects that colonial institutions like prisons and schools had on the lives of Indians, this dissertation examines the ways in which Indian Trinidadians had to engage in the discourse on religion in order to make a place for themselves on the island. It argues that "religion" was not simply a superimposed product of "the West" in the colonies. Rather, the dissertation argues it was a joint, if highly contentious and unequal, venture, on the part of both colonizers and colonized. Taking examples of fire walking, the ritual theater of Ramlila, Muharram or Hosay, and heterogeneous healing and spirit working practices, among others, it looks at how religion was negotiated, as European categories were in turn disputed and reworked in and through the emerging discourse and practice of Indians. It then investigates the changing role of the categories Hindu and Hinduism and disputes over their meaning in the formation of regional Hindu organizations, as Indians in Trinidad struggled and collaborated among themselves, reforming and standardizing Hindu practices and institutions, attempting to make them into a modern religion, a coherent, even global, Hinduism.