CARIBBEAN, July 24, 2024 (Religion News Service): A standard feature in any biography of Kamala Harris is the fact her parents — one a Hindu from India, the other a Baptist from Jamaica — met at the University of California, Berkeley, where they were both students in the 1960s. For many who claim Indo-Caribbean heritage, Vice President Kamala Harris’ spotlight is the perfect chance to dive into the community’s lesser-known past: where indigenous faiths and cultural traditions found more in common than not.

Indians first came in numbers to the Caribbean in the early 19th century, when the British Empire brought them west as indentured servants, mostly to the islands of Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados, as well as Guyana and Suriname on the northeast shoulder of South America. Indian Hindus, who at the time would not have defined themselves as Hindus, brought their spiritual practices with them, according to Alexander Rocklin, assistant professor of religious studies at Kenyon College and author of “The Regulation of Religion and the Making of Hinduism in Colonial Trinidad.” Those practices went on to influence the existing Catholic and Protestant Christians, Muslims and devotees of African spiritualities. One person’s research shows that Hinduism even had a part in the foundations of Rastafari, the religion that began in Jamaica and may be considered one of its most indelible cultural exports.

Much more at source.
https://religionnews.com/2024/07/24/one-love-how-religious-traditions-in-the-caribbean-influenced-one-another/

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