HINDUS IN SURINAM
From our Website Researcher

Reading and/or listening to lectures in Europe on the Caribbean, one can he forgiven for thinking that the Caribbean is mostly African-Caribbean. Very few people realise or are aware of the fact that in parts of the Caribbean, the population consists of a large number of people of Asian origin.  Two countries come to mind, Guyana and Surinam and the islands of Trinidad and Tobago. In each of these, if we look at the whole population, we see that Asians form the largest group.  The rest of the 50% or 60% has to be divided between the people of African descent (who form the largest group) and others, including those of European descent, as well as the original inhabitants.  In Guyana today, there are large areas populated by the Warrows and in Surinarn, the Arawaks.

The University of Surinam, department of Social Science research (IHWO) has now taken steps to raise world-wide awareness of the Asian descent population in Surinam. They also provide information on the Surinam Hindu communities cultural history, both past and present.

There are two Data Bases.  One on the Javanese (early settlers from the island of Java) and the second on the Hindus. The bilingual Dutch/English data is digitally assessable and makes very interesting reading.  It may also be of interest to researchers or students studying the Diaspora of Asians to the Caribbean and then to contemporary Europe.

Hindus in Surinam (info from IHWQ)

Hindus to Surinam began in 1873 when the first shipload of people from British India arrived in Surinam.  Between that date and 1916 over 34,000 Hindus were transported to these areas.  The descendants of those early settlers can trace their personal family roots through the Data Base. They have only to tap in their family name and number in order to trace the exact family back in India.

Full commentary on www.archief.nl/suriname

 Further details from Amrit@bart.nl

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This page was last updated on 21-Aug-2000