Gita

victor van Bijlert victorvanbijlert at KPNPLANET.NL
Thu Jan 15 18:30:36 UTC 2009


It is correct that the largest non-Christian religion is Islam with an
estimated 800,000 to a million adherents. The Hindus certainly outnumber the
Jews. The large majority of Hindus in the Netherlands are migrants from
Surinam, a former Dutch colony on the Northern coast of Brazil. These Hindus
(in Dutch referred to as Hindostanis) actually came to Surinam as bonded
contract-labourers from the United Provinces mainly, between roughly 1870 to
1919. Among these labourers about 80 percent was Hindu, and the rest were
Muslims, with a few Sikhs in between. In the seventies of the twentieth
century many of these Surinamese Hindustanis migrated to the Netherlands.
Hence we find many people in the Netherlands of Indian origin, not from
Bali. But as we did not have any censuses taken in the Netherlands since the
early eighties, exact numbers cannot be given.

Victor


-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: Indology [mailto:INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk] Namens Allen W Thrasher
Verzonden: donderdag 15 januari 2009 19:15
Aan: INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
Onderwerp: Re: Gita

Victor, 

You said,

" And this in spite of the fact
that Hinduism is the second largest non-Christian religion in the
Netherlands with approximately between 120,000 to 200,000 adherents."


I presume the largest is Islam.  Does this mean there are more Hindus than
Jews?

Also, is it known how many are Hindus of Balinese or other Indonesian origin
and how many from the subcontinent?

Allen


Allen W. Thrasher, Ph.D.
Senior Reference Librarian
Team Coordinator
South Asia Team, Asian Division
Library of Congress, Jefferson Building 150
101 Independence Ave., S.E.
Washington, DC 20540-4810
tel. 202-707-3732; fax 202-707-1724; athr at loc.gov
The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Library of
Congress.





More information about the INDOLOGY mailing list