The major annual celebration is Ramad.a ̄n. The ‘ ̄dı closing the Ramad.a ̄n
fast is usually marked by prayers held in a large auditorium with all the other
Muslims of the city. But socialization thereafter reverts to the “home
mosque” and to “family gatherings” where ethnic, sub-ethnic, and family
traditions may be maintained. The other major annual event is the ‘ ̄dı that
marks the “day of sacrifice” during the h.ajj. This is usually observed in the
“home mosque” and at home.
These South Asian settlers of the Pittsburgh area share much in common
with their compatriots of whatever religious commitment. The men are
almost invariably professional and well-placed in the community. Most of
the women are similarly professionally engaged – and the majority of those
working in the home are at least college graduates. The laity of the groups
are active in the governance of the religious institutions; leadership is elected
and rotates regularly. The women have an active role in the institutions’
lives – an extension, as more than one put it, of their domestic agendas.
They assume roles, not only as cooks for public meals, but also as teachers,
officers, and interpreters of the tradition. For each community, the reli-
gious structure serves not only as religious space, but also as a cultural
and social space for the socialization of their children and for sharing of
common concerns relative to living in a society where they remain a religious
minority.
The story of the global dispersion of Indian ideas, culture, and people,
only sketched here, suggests a number of implications. It is clear, for
example, that religion is now transnational. No longer is “east east” and “west
west.” Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and Buddhists have become the neighbors
of Christians and Jews. Muslims, for example, are the second largest religious
population in France and are as abundant in the US as are Jews. Hinduism
is not confined to India and to Indians; Buddhism, with its active publishing
agencies in the US and the concomitant construction of stu ̄ pasand medi-
tation centers is stronger in the US than it was in its first century in China,
where it became the “state religion” within centuries.
This leads us back to the conclusion with which we started this study. It is
not possible to ignore these religious traditions in our study of history, of
religion, or of the human experience, for to do so would be to ignore some-
thing of the world’s history and of the changing face of the West’s religious
landscape. In fact, the presence of these alternative religions and of South
Asian immigrants in most countries of the world is an invitation for persons
raised in any single religious tradition or in no religion at all, to rethink
the ways in which fundamental human issues are answered in light of the
questions raised by these transnational migrations. After learning what we
can from the people of South Asia, their questions, their interactions, their
244 India’s Global Reach