In the last few years, there has been a noticeable wave of panic among some Hindu organisations about Hindu American kids growing up to no longer identify as Hindu.
In December, the Hindu American Foundation put out a video titled “IMPORTANT Public Service Announcement | The Hidden Nature of Predatory Proselytization,” with executive director Suhag Shukla telling parents how to keep their children safe from Christian pressure to convert. The Hindu Parents Network, an initiative of the Coalition of Hindus of North America, has a webpage of resources dedicated to training parents on how to talk about Hinduism to their kids, including articles about how Hindu parents can save their children from woke academics.
At least some of the panic is coming in response to a Pew Research Center study that found that about 18 per cent of adults in the US who were raised Hindus no longer identify as Hindu. Of course, this means that 82 per cent of adults in the US who were raised Hindu still identify as Hindu—a higher percentage continuing to identify with their childhood faith than any other religious community surveyed.
According to the study, 73 per cent of adults in the US who grew up Christian still identify as Christian, while 77 per cent of individuals who grew up Muslim and 76 per cent of those who grew up Jewish still identify with the faith they grew up in. Only 45 per cent of adults who were raised Buddhist maintain a Buddhist identity.
Hindus have the lowest “attrition” rate of the five major religious communities in the US.
All this being said, religious identity is fundamentally a personal choice, and our community ought to be well aware that by living in the United States, Hindu children will be exposed to a wide range of ideas that may make them choose to disaffiliate from their faith or even choose a different faith entirely.
If a young person decides that they feel more “Indian” than Hindu, doesn’t believe in God, or finds it easier to reach the divine through another religious path, that person has not done anything wrong. If anything, they have followed a very Hindu belief of seeking truth—and rather than blindly following a path laid out for them, they have sought to find truth for themselves.
Of course, it is completely reasonable for Hindu parents to want their children to have a positive Hindu identity. As a Hindu who has faced my own share of proselytisation attempts, bullying, and culturally incompetent social studies education, I know how Hindus and other religious minorities can feel pressure to stop identifying with the religion they believe in.
There is also no question that Hindus born and brought up in the United States are increasingly absent from mainstream Hindu life. I grew up going to balavihar, a Hindu education programme, every Sunday with a group of 20-30 kids. At the balavihar, local parent volunteers taught us yoga, Hindu shlokas and bhajans, Hindu stories, and Indian history (my balavihar was also unaffiliated with the balavihar programme now run by Chinmaya Mission).
While most of those kids grew up to become Hindu adults (at least culturally), there are people from my balavihar community who no longer identify as Hindu. I can count on one hand the number of US-born Hindus who regularly visit my temple in Eugene, and I am the only one who serves on any leadership committees.
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Cultivating a positive Hindu identity
Much of this disaffiliation from Hinduism is a result of the declining popularity of religion itself. According to the Pew survey, the vast majority of people leaving all faiths—including Hinduism—are disaffiliating from religion. Many of my Hindu-raised peers who are no longer Hindu simply don’t believe in God and believe Hindu customs are superstitious. Besides a new Great Awakening, I doubt there is much that religious communities can do to reverse the trend of disaffiliation and atheism.
For others, however, the decision to not identify as Hindu anymore has come from harmful experiences they had within the Hindu community, from not being allowed to go to the temple on their period to the pervasive Islamophobia and casteism they heard from family members. One of my best friends—whose mother taught shlokas and bhajans at balavihar—stopped identifying as Hindu soon after her mother passed away, disturbed by the sexism and casteism involved in her funeral rituals. The priest blessed her and her sister, saying he hoped they would get “good Brahmin husbands” and fastidiously maintained casteist customs such as a rite required to be conducted by four Brahmin men. Disturbed by just how much caste seemed inseparable from religious practice, she put Hinduism at a distance.
It is also difficult for American Hindus to be a part of mainstream Hindu life when it contradicts our values so frequently. One US-born Hindu friend has tried to be involved in mainstream Hindu life, sending her children to Chinmaya Mission for their balavihar programme. But she and her husband pulled their kids out, anxious that the programme was promoting a rigid, orthodox version of Hinduism that they did not want their kids to grow up with.
Most American Hindus want to continue being a part of the Hindu community, but they want a Hinduism that is inclusive. As minorities who have faced discrimination, we are averse to the discrimination against Muslims, Dalits, and women so prevalent in our community. As people who grew up in American society, where independent thinking is considered a virtue, we want the freedom to challenge mainstream and orthodox Hindu ideas.
Cultivating a positive Hindu identity for the next generation requires real engagement with our religion and a willingness to challenge regressive ideas and imagine new ways of practising our faith in inclusive ways. It means recognising that caste and sexism are part of how our religion is widely practised and that we need to develop new ways of practising Hinduism that promote equality. It also means that we need to give space to American Hindus to challenge, reform, and even get rid of practices that perpetuate harm.
Fearmongering about Christians and pretending that caste doesn’t exist will not stop Hindu youth from leaving our religion. Creating Hindu institutions and communities that reject casteism and sexism and treat all visitors and community members with equal respect and dignity will allow American Hindus to be in Hindu spaces fully as themselves, while also contributing to a more joyful and harmonious South Asian community life.
Sravya Tadepalli is the deputy executive director of Hindus for Human Rights. Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)
The previous comment from Madhavatvam really says it all. The lazy, dishonest and cherry-picked narrative is reflective of not just the mediocrity of the article and its editorial oversight, but also of the agenda driven biases. Do better!
Once again…
This article is intellectually dishonest from start to finish. The author leads with “18% of Hindus are leaving the faith” while hiding the real story: Hindus have the highest retention rate of any major religion. That’s not honest reporting—it’s deliberate manipulation.
Where’s the proof that people leave because of “casteism or sexism”? She provides zero data. Just claims. And if these are such big problems, why do Hindus have the lowest dropout rate? Why aren’t they leaving faster than people from other religions that have their own serious issues? She never answers this because it would destroy her entire argument.
When Hindu parents worry about their kids being pressured to convert or facing bias in schools, she calls it “panic” and mocks them. That’s not analysis—that’s gaslighting.
This is the old colonial playbook with new words: call the religion backward, position yourself as the enlightened savior, dismiss anyone who objects as ignorant. Same condescending attitude, just dressed up in progressive language.
A real analysis would compare all religions, actually survey people who left Hinduism and ask why, acknowledge that Hindu reform movements have existed for centuries, and consider that maybe the high retention rate means the tradition is actually working for people. None of that appears here because the author already decided what she wanted to say before looking at any facts.
That ThePrint published this statistical manipulation and evidence-free opinion piece says a lot about their editorial standards. This probably got published not despite its problems, but because it says what certain people want to hear.
Hindu Americans don’t need this author to fix their faith. They need honest journalism—not recycled anti-Hindu stereotypes pretending to be analysis
I do feel this was a singular representation of the rapidly growing Hindu diasporic behemoth. My experience was pretty different and not represented here. I grew up with Advaita Vedanta and extremely practical, philosophical core-essence Upanishadic teachings of Sanatan Dharma. Hinduism does not just equal a stereotype of rituals and Ramayan. Much of Vedanta or the Kashmiri Shaivism I also grew up with are both closer to what people know as Buddhism than the wild stories of the Bhagvatam, for instance. Also, a majority of diaspora genuinely did not grow up with casteism. I had a pretty progressive community and parents and was only in late adulthood compelled to ask about any castism in my subculture because of an imposed Western / American media narrative and the trending cultural zeitgeist forced it upon us, when it was in fact never taught, inculcated, or involved in any way in my upbringing nor my ancestors’ traditions upon inquiry. I wonder why this reality is also not represented?
As an Indian American (born in India) here is my 2 cents:
It’s true that for a large number of Hindus, caste is a part of the lived experience of our religion. However, I have noticed that caste and superstition is particularly deep-rooted in certain Brahmin communities. Unfortunately, these communities have a disproportionate representation among American Hindus.
As a Bengali Brahmin, I have been told that Brahmins from Eastern India are “not really Brahmins” whatever that means, because we are non-vegetarian. I have been refused rental accommodation in Bangalore because I would be cooking fish. A relative had the same experience in Ahmedabad.
Hindus from Eastern India are often not considered “Hindu enough” because we are apparently not adequately religious.
Unfortunately, most Hindus know very little about our own religion outside caste and the various superstitions. Hinduism is one religion where questioning is supposed to be encouraged. In reality, whether in USA or India, questioning is discouraged because the teachers themselves are ignorant.
So don’t take your or your friends’ personal experiences and extend them to all Hindus or Hinduism in general.
I have also done the last rites for my parent. I am a woman but I didn’t have to repeat those “mantras” that your friend did. Again, mantras can vary from region to region. Sometimes a priest who is sensitive to modern values omits
parts that he knows are unacceptable.
A generation ago, a woman wouldn’t have been performing the last rites. So Hinduism is capable of change from within.
Islamophobia is definitely not a part of Hinduism. It’s entirely political. Just the fact that you think it is, makes me question your knowledge of Hinduism. If you think something is unacceptable, you are always free to make changes. Hinduism gives us that permission.
Yes, Hindu mantras need to be translated and sentiments expressed in them that are not consistent with modern values must be weeded out. That must be done for all Hindus, whether American or Indian.