Maybe you grew up with jhandi flags (colored prayer flags on bamboo poles, planted after a puja) and a harmonium in the front room. Maybe you know the prayers by sound but not by meaning, and you wonder if that still counts. It does. I’m Ashley Ali, a first-generation Indo-Caribbean-American and Guyanese Hindu woman in Queens. In this guide to Indo-Caribbean Hinduism, I’ll share where our faith comes from, what our ancestors kept and changed, and simple ways to carry it forward, the way I would with a cousin over tea.
My jahaji roots and where Indo-Caribbean Hinduism began
Jahaj means boat, and jahaji names the Indians who made the journey on those boats. Survivors of the crossing called each other jahajis and jahajins, ship brothers and ship sisters. So when I say I have jahaji roots, I mean I come from people who crossed an ocean and kept going.
First, the short history. The British Empire abolished slavery in 1834, and sugar planters wanted new, cheap labor. In 1838, planters in what was then British Guiana adopted the indenture system, as anthropologist Rupa Pillai explains in her essay for the Social Science Research Council. Historian Basdeo Mangru records that the first ships, the Whitby and the Hesperus, landed on May 5, 1838, with 396 people. Only 22 of them were women.
Between 1838 and 1917, about 450,000 South Asians made the journey across the Kala Pani, the “dark waters,” according to Jahajee’s history of our community. Most came from the Bhojpuri-speaking regions of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The largest numbers went to Guyana, Trinidad, Jamaica and Suriname, and Jahajee names indenture plainly: “slavery by another name.”
Many signed contracts to escape poverty and famine back home. Trinidad’s first boatload arrived on May 30, 1845, and contracts there bound workers for five years. The system officially ended by 1920. When friends ask why our Hinduism looks and sounds a little different, the answer starts with that voyage.
I often picture those 22 women on the first ships. No mandir (temple) was waiting for them. Still, I imagine they carried what fit inside memory: prayers, songs and stories of Ram and Sita. That is the root of our faith, and it is why I treat every puja as an inheritance.
What Indo-Caribbean Hinduism kept, and what it changed
Our ancestors came from many villages, languages and traditions. On the estates, those differences slowly blended. In British Guiana, Pillai explains, these diverse traditions were reshaped into one unified Hindu community. Priests took on the shape of a Protestant congregation and dropped practices seen as “heathenish,” because colonial officials doubted Hinduism was a legitimate religion. In short, survival meant adapting.
Mandir life built for a new home
You can still feel that congregational shape on a Sunday morning. A service at a Guyanese mandir in Queens can run for hours, with prayers, a sermon or reading, bhajans (devotional songs) with live music, a havan (fire offering) and arti (the lamp offering). Afterward, people often share a meal. It feels part temple, part family reunion. Practice varies by sampradaya (lineage), so yours may differ.
Some families also follow the Madrassi tradition, the worship of Mariamman or Kali Mai. Mariamman is a South Indian village goddess. Writer Harry Hergash notes in Stabroek News that Albion, in Guyana, is home to a large Tamil community and is a major center for Kali Mai Puja, a South Indian form of Kali worship. In New York, Pujari Basdeo Mangal helped establish this worship, and in 2022 part of Van Siclen Avenue in Brooklyn was co-named Pujari Basdeo Mangal Way.
Festivals with a Caribbean accent
We kept the big festivals, but they picked up a Caribbean accent. Holi is Phagwah to us, an official public holiday in Guyana and Trinidad. We sing chowtal, folk songs that still carry the Bhojpuri of our ancestors. I compare the two festivals in my guide to Phagwah versus Holi.
Diwali kept its glow too, with deyas (small clay lamps) and prayers to Mother Lakshmi. I’ll cover the five days and the stories behind them in a separate guide to Diwali meaning and traditions, closer to the festival.
Language, music and the harmonium
Language is where the loss shows most. Hergash describes how our ancestors’ dialects blended into a shared “Guyanese Bhojpuri.” Then, generation by generation, English and Creole took over, until mostly words and phrases survived. You still hear them in the kitchen (belna, roti, daal), in chowtal and in what we call our grandparents: Aja and Aji on Dad’s side, Nana and Nani on Mom’s.
The music held on, too. Indentured laborers brought their folk songs from memory, because none were written down, as Vishnu Bisram notes in Kaieteur News. Taan, a classical folk singing style, grew from those memories. Harmonium, dholak (a two-sided drum) and jhaal (cymbals) usually carry it, and groups in Queens still gather to sing it. So a prayer you know only by sound still makes you a link in that chain.
Indo-Caribbean Hinduism in Queens and Richmond Hill
In the 1970s and 1980s, Indo-Caribbeans began moving to New York City to escape social, political and economic turmoil at home. Many Guyanese first settled in Brooklyn and the Bronx. Later, safer streets and better schools drew families to Queens, where relatives pooled their money to buy houses. Grocery stores, restaurants and places of worship soon followed.
Over time, Richmond Hill, South Richmond Hill, Ozone Park and South Ozone Park changed from Italian American neighborhoods into “Little Guyana.” In 2021, the corner of Liberty Avenue and Lefferts Boulevard was co-named “Little Guyana Avenue.” Today you might hear a bhajan from a mandir and chutney soca from a passing car on the same block, and that mix is the whole point.
Our holy days spill onto the street here, too. Each spring the Phagwah parade runs down Liberty Avenue, and Diwali brings a motorcade of lights to the same stretch. This year, the Hindu American Foundation’s 2026 calendar lists Diwali on November 8. Because Hindu dates follow the lunar calendar, your family or mandir may mark it a day apart depending on location.
Intergenerational healing and the stigma we inherited
Now the tender part. Our ancestors survived hard labor, separation and loss, and survival leaves marks. In many of our homes, pain stayed private. People prayed, cooked, worked and kept going, but they rarely said “I’m not okay.” That silence protected us once. Today, however, it can keep people from the help they need.
A 2024 systematic review from the College of Staten Island looked at research on suicidal behavior among Indo-Caribbean youth. It names stigma around suicide, scarce mental health resources and hard economic conditions as risk factors. It also lists religious or spiritual practice and group activities as protective factors for young people. Faith is not a substitute for care, but it can be part of the net that holds us.
With my background in school counseling, I see faith and therapy as partners, not rivals. Prayer and therapy can work side by side, and sometimes therapy needs to come first. For survivors of domestic and sexual violence, Jahajee holds support groups twice a month, and survivors in crisis may qualify for discounted therapy with an Indo-Caribbean mental health professional. If you or someone you love is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
Breaking the silence at home
It can start small. Say a young woman wants to tell her Nani that she has started therapy. She might say, “I’m talking to someone so I can carry less. It doesn’t mean our family failed.” One honest sentence like that may open a door without starting a fight.
So here is how I sort our inheritance. Hold on to the prayers, the food, the music and the way our elders show up for each other. Then let go of the shame, the silence and the idea that asking for help is weak. Our ancestors carried what they had to carry, and now we get to choose.
When you are ready, try these journal questions:
- What did my family carry across the water that I still want to carry?
- Which habits did they carry out of necessity that I am allowed to set down?
- Who in my family might need to hear, “I see what you survived”?
How to keep Indo-Caribbean Hinduism alive at home
You don’t need a big temple or perfect Hindi to keep the tradition alive. Small, steady steps are enough. Pick one of these this week and add the rest over time.
- Collect one story. Ask an elder which village, estate or ship your family connects to. A food question is a gentle way in: “Aji, what did your mother cook for Diwali?” Write down the answer, or record it with permission.
- Search the records. UNESCO added the indenture records of Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname and Fiji to its Memory of the World Register in 2011. Trinidad’s National Archives lists its indentureship registers from 1845 to 1917, and the Indo-Caribbean Alliance keeps an Indo-Caribbean Special Collection at Queens Library.
- Learn one prayer by meaning. Ask a pandit or elder to explain a prayer you know by sound, line by line.
- Make a small home altar. A shelf, a clean cloth, a murti (sacred image) or picture, a flower and a deya are enough. An LED deya works fine in a small apartment.
- Show up together. Take a younger cousin or a curious friend to the mandir, the Phagwah parade or a Diwali puja.
- Ask before you assume. Rites differ by family, region and sampradaya, so check customs with a pandit or elder first.
Losing my mother in 2020 made this personal for me. Tradition is not a museum piece behind glass. Instead, it is a practice you choose again and again.
Common questions about our faith
Is Indo-Caribbean Hinduism different from Hinduism in India?
Both share the same roots, scriptures and major deities. The difference is history. Indenture, estate life and generations in the Caribbean shaped how we worship, what we call our festivals and the songs we sing. Neither one is more authentic, because they are branches of one tree.
Are all Indo-Caribbean people Hindu?
No. Our community includes Muslims and Christians as well as Hindus. Hergash notes that roughly three quarters of the indentured immigrants to Guyana were Hindu and about one quarter were Muslim. Today, Pillai writes, most Indo-Caribbeans in the United States are Hindu.
Carrying our jahaji pride forward
I’m proud of where I come from. Our ancestors crossed dark waters with almost nothing, and they still built mandirs, festivals and families. One line I live by sums it up: “The previous generation’s ceiling is our generation’s floor.” We stand on what they built, so we can reach a little higher.
My own path, and my mother’s place in it, is on my about page. I also give keynotes and panels on our history and healing for mandirs, campus groups, nonprofits and workplaces, in person around New York, across the U.S. and on Zoom. When your group is ready, tell me who will be listening, and I’ll suggest a talk that honors both our history and your people.