Comments on: Data on Indian Americans: religion & politics

By: Razib Khan

Razib Khan — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 05:41:29 +0000

that’s not what i meant. came out wrong. see above comments. i mean that less than 90% of indian americans are hindu.

By: Kev

Kev — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 00:58:36 +0000

That 90% of Indian Americans are not Hindu seems to me to be patently wrong! In my experience, a good majority of Indians, be it at work or at other social settings, are in fact Hindus. And I have been around quite a bit! I wonder how that figure came about!

By: Razib Khan

Razib Khan — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 21:20:28 +0000

http://religions.pewforum.org/portraits

5%White (non-Hispanic) 1%Black (non-Hispanic) 88%Asian (non-Hispanic) 4%Other/Mixed (non-Hispanic) 2%Hispanic

the sample size is REALLY small. but i find it entirely plausible that a substantial proportion of non-indian hindus are converts or ethnically atypical.

By: rbose

rbose — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 18:58:48 +0000

Razib, is there data on which groups comprise the remaining 10% of Hindu Americans? I'm guessing that a significant portion would still be of South Asian descent (Nepali, Bangladeshi, or from the Indian diaspora).

I have actually known Balinese Hindus in the US, because there is a pretty great Balinese/Indonesian restaurant near where I live. But, I don't know much about them, where they worship, etc. It would be nice if Hindu temples in the US could arrange for the different Hindu communities to meet and learn from each other as a celebration of diversity.

By: Razib Khan

Razib Khan — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 20:22:56 +0000

With Hindu Americans, most likely atheists and agnostics are a subset. Hindus do not have the same concept of being Hindu as christians have of being christian.

this is true, but a surprising number are believers in the supernatural agents.

http://religions.pewforum.org/comparisons#

click ‘belief in god.’ note the contrast with buddhists. the astika nastika divide?

By: sri

sri — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 18:01:43 +0000

the 80% figure includes the Dalits and I have seen a lot of their leaders question the 80% Hindu figure. I’d guess its about 60-70% tops

By: Pravin Praveen

Pravin Praveen — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 17:58:28 +0000

With Hindu Americans, most likely atheists and agnostics are a subset. Hindus do not have the same concept of being Hindu as christians have of being christian.

Among the generation of Hindu Indians born here, I wonder what percentage of Hindus are actually agnostic even if they perform rituals with their parents and for their own weddings. As far as the generation of immigrant Indians, I do not see, strictly anecdotally of course, any difference in the atheist/agnostic makeup compared to Indians who remain in India. If anything, some may become even more religious after coming here as the temple serves as a cultural meeting ground too.

By: Varoon Shekhar

Varoon Shekhar — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 17:47:46 +0000

I attended the US Open table tennis tournament in Milwaukee, and there was no under-representation of Hindu Indians there at all! Neither of ethnic Indians settled in the US, nor of players directly from India, representing India in the competition. In fact, there was only one player out of the more than 50, who was of non-Hindu background, a Christian. Nice to see such a Hindu thronged and Hindu friendly event! Simply because, outside specific Indian community gatherings, it is so rare. I do know that in Canada, Sikhs and Moslems are over-represented and given way too much coverage by the media, in contrast to Hindus. Also, good to see Indians/person of Indian origin, participating hugely in a sport other than cricket!

By: Megha

Megha — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 07:38:32 +0000

Sorry for all the typos in the previous comment. I will give it a try.

By: boston_mahesh

boston_mahesh — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 05:59:33 +0000

Ramachandra: I am sure Hindu Americans are under-represented in America but not by that much. I have read that of the ~2.8 million Indian-Americans some 200,000 are Jains, 500,000 are Sikhs and 600,000 are Christians making them by far the most disproportionately over-represented of India's religious communities. Muslim Indians are probably even more under-represented than Hindus. Atheists and agnostics are very likely heavily over-represented.

According to the Indian census from 2001, the portion of the different faiths in India are as follows:

Religion (%) Hindus 80.5 Muslims 13.4 Christians 2.3 Sikhs 1.9 Buddhists 0.8 Jains 0.4 Total * 100

Based on this data and your data, which I trust is correct:
Religion (% of total Indians in USA) OVER/UNDER REPRESENTED RELATIVE TO INDIA Hindu 43 UNDER REPRESENTED BY A FACTOR OF 0.53 Muslims ?? ?? Christians 21 OVER REPRESENTED BY A FACTOR OF 9.1 Sikhs 18 OVER REPRESENTED BY A FACTOR OF 9.5 Jains 7 OVER REPRESENTED BY A FACTOR OF 17.5

By the way, I took the TOTAL value of Hindus, which may include Hindus whos origins are Nepali, Balinese, Trini/Tobago, Bangladeshi, etc. Also, there are a lot of quasi-Hindus, such as ISKCON (?), who do not identify as being Hindu. Anyways, for matters of simplicity, I assumed that all 1.2M Hindus were Indian which shouldn't be a bad assumption.

I have no clue why Christians, Sikhs, and Jains are over-represented, but my working theory is that these communities are enterprising (Jains and Sikhs are great commerce-oriented peoples) or have a proclivity to being expats (i.e. the Christians of South India who migrate as petrol engineers or laborers in the UAE).

On another note, I don't get the impression that Americans realize how over-represented Sikhs are in the USA. They imagine that much of India and Indian culture - or half of it - is Bollywood, bhangra, and turban culture, and that everyone is a "Poonjaabi". They've never heard of a "Orissan" for example.