Approximately 900 million Hindus live in India, which, at 81.5% of India’s 1.1 billion population, constitutes the overwhelmingly largest number of Hindu citizens of any nation on the globe. It might be initially surprising, then, to consider that many Indians feel ‘more Hindu’ when they move to the United States, and out of the world’s epicenter for the religion.

For example, 13-year-old Samyuktha Shivraj, who moved with her family to New York five years ago, clearly remembers her childhood in India and can accurately compare the family’s religious practices before and after the move. She confesses that they are far more observant, go to temple more often, and have more discussions about the meanings of prayers and the significance of celebrations now that they are in the United States. “When I say those prayers now, I actually know what it means,” she explains. “It’s not just a mundane ritual routine that I’m doing.”

Apparently, this has been the experience for many Indians who move to the United States. Rather than losing touch with their origins, their faith becomes more integral to defining who they are. Going to temple is an act of associating oneself with a tight-knit community, and identifying with one’s Indian heritage, not solely the religion. To this end, many temples in the United States also serve as centers for community events and education.

Samyuktha, for example, is a member of the youth club at her temple, and attends Indian heritage camps. This summer, she assisted her mother, who is a classical Indian singer, in organizing a weeklong camp themselves. Another camp in Rochester, New York, called the Hindu Heritage Summer Camp, welcomes 150 children between the ages of 8 and 15 for a two-week experience in which philosophy and religious lessons are juxtaposed by arts and crafts and sports. “If we don’t know where we come from and where we are, we are lost,” said president of the camp, Dr. Padmanabh Kamath.

Diana Eck, professor of comparative religion at Harvard University, explains that the shift in conscientousness occurs precisely because practicing Hindus represent a fairly small percentage of the population in the U.S. “To be Hindu in America is much more an intentional choice than it is in India,” Dr. Eck opines. “Even if you’re first generation, you have to decide if you perpetuate it or if you just kind of let it go.”

After all, Hindus comprise about 1 million of the U.S.’s total of 300 million people, a percentage that could very easily become “lost,” in the words of Dr. Kamath. The community centers in temples and organizations like the summer camp create a consciousness about traditional practices and the precepts of Hinduism itself that would otherwise go unregarded. Dr. Uma Mysorekar, one of the trustees of the Ganesh Temple in Queens that the Shivraj family attends, recalls that in India, “We just observed and followed and never questioned.” Though it is beautiful to be surrounded and inundated by the religion’s culture, it is beautiful, too, to be inspired to look more deeply into the doctrine.

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