responses to the exigencies of history and the modern world – we should
not be able to remain the same as we were before we started this study.
In many ways, Indians who have sought to revivify or reinterpret their
religious orientations since the nineteenth century have been a people living
“on the boundaries.” They have been renegotiating identities in response to
multiple cultures and religions. They have reacted – even over-reacted
- to the effects of colonialism and have been tempted by the lure of nation-
alism, orthopraxy, and ethnicity. They have sought to maintain anchorage
in the face of increased mobility, and the loss of a sense of rootedness
and community. Their experience has become, in many respects, a mirror
of the experience of most persons living in the twenty-first century. Many
persons today live “on the boundaries,” familiar with more than one culture
or religion through travel, education, or life experience. Many persons look
for authentic humans worth emulating, experiment with “rituals that
work,” and long for a sense of community. Not infrequently, people “on the
boundaries” have turned to orthopraxy – the practice of a “tradition”
thought to affirm certainty and heritage. Others experiment with alternative
ideas and construct collages of religion. In any case, the Indian experience
demonstrates that we have come to an exciting and important moment
in the history of religions, one in which new religious landscapes continually
emerge like the images of a kaleidoscope and where people will have to learn
whether it is possible to share the same planet. In effect, the search for a
new world order – to say nothing of more satisfying religious orientations –
has just begun.
Recommended reading
On the global dispersal of South Asian culture and people
Agarwal, P. Passage From India: Post 1965 Indian Immigrants and Their Children. Palos
Verdes, CA: Yuvati Publications, 1991.
Ballard, R. ed. Desh Pardesh, the South Asian Presence in Britain. London: Hurst, 1994.
Buchignani, N. et al.Continuous Journey: A Social History of South Asians in Canada.
Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1985.
Coedès, G. The Indianized States of Southeast Asia. Honolulu: East-West Center Press,
1968.
Daniels, R. History of Indian Immigration to the United States. New York: The Asia Society,
1989.
Desai, S. Indian Immigrants in Britain. London: Oxford University Press, 1963.
Jain, Ravindra K. South Indians on the Plantation Frontier in Malaya. Kuala Lumpur:
University of Malaya Press, 1970.
Jensen, J. M. Passage From India: Asian Indian Immigrants in North America. New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press, 1988.
India’s Global Reach 245