Women’s Leadership and Transnational Belonging in the Global Hindu Adhiparasakthi Tradition

Introduction

Resourceful work in theories of transnationality have been developed by a number of social theorists alongside interdisciplinary scholars (Appadurai 1991; Burawoy 2000; Gille, Zsuzsa, and Seán Ó. Riain 2002) illustrating the benefits of extending research across disciplinary boundaries. This trend in scholarship has been useful in correcting a problematic assumption regarding studies on Hindu communities outside India; namely the notion that diaspora communities in North America and elsewhere can be fully differentiated from Hindus in India.

A significant element of recent research in human geography has looked to belonging as performance, refocusing belonging not as a status or position that one might attain (or be denied) but rather as a set of practices and processes (e.g. Curtis and Mee, 2012; Fenster and Vizel, 2007; Instone, 2009; Mee 2009; Veninga, 2009). In this approach the focus in on the multiple ways that belonging is enacted, bracketing the question of ‘what it means to belong’. Such approaches foreground the active and ongoing ways that people engage places, processes and forms of conduct as they navigate the world and negotiate their place in it (Mee 2009; Wright 2015). 

Context & Methodology

This paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork during early 2020-2021. The ongoing project and the earlier Canadian project (2017) combines mixed methodologies. At the time of my fieldwork, the communities ranged in size from approximately 200-300 people, although attendance averages range on a spectrum from those who attended weekly pujas or attended particularly on special holidays.

Set within the broader scope of religion and migration from South Asia, this paper examines how transnational religion and community-building interact within the context of North American Hindu religious communities. This research highlights the ways in which simultaneous ‘belonging’ within global/local communities has been cultivated, (and expanded during the Covid pandemic), by drawing on technology and multi-media to sustain and expand practical connections in additional forms. Such innovations have enhanced interconnections across locations, language barriers, and age groups (youth), and have been applied at the main temple (India), the North American diaspora centers and elsewhere abroad. Through organized communal efforts and volunteer service, digital and media connections have taken on new expressions in form and function.

The Adhiparasakthi temple societies in New Jersey, Wisconsin, and Toronto, Canada are part of the transnational Adhiparasakthi organization, a South Indian guru-centered Goddess tradition (est. 1970s) with both global and local dimensions. The primary Mother temple for this tradition is located in Melmaruvathur, India its founding location with local centers in multiple countries. The North American worship centers maintain transnational connections to the organization’s headquarters and central temple in India, and practitioners from North America travel there regularly for ritual/festival occasions and pilgrimage.

History: Diaspora Devotees

Within a transnational context, people are not static but mobile, their locations physical and intersectional (Crenshaw 2011), may shift and change as people migrate, work, study and travel abroad. In the context of this transnational spiritual organization, we are focused at the intersections where the global meets the local within these diaspora communities. For the scope of this paper, such places include Melmaruvathur, India and the following North American community site locations.

In Toronto, the majority of the Adhiparasakthi community migrated to Canada during the 1990s from Sri Lanka due to the complexities of civil war and displacement (1983-2009). Over time this ethnic Tamil community has grown and established a thriving cultural enclave, especially in the district of Scarborough where many Sri Lankan Tamils have settled. When the temple society was established in 2002, the Adhiparasakthi community was mainly comprised of first/second generation immigrants and refugees, mostly from the Jaffna region. In recent years the third generation has also now established themselves within the community.

In the United States, the Adhiparasakthi communities such as those in New Jersey and Wisconsin for example, are somewhat different in their composition from Toronto. While these communities are also comprised of ethnic Tamils, they are mainly immigrants from India, with a tiny percentage of Sri Lankans. This is largely due to variations in immigration laws between the US and Canada. Among the Sri Lankan devotees with whom I spoke, several stated that they had moved to the US via Canada mainly for reasons of career, relocation, and family reunification.

MAINTAINING TRANSNATIONAL CONNECTIONS

What unites these sister-communities separated by vast distances over land and sea? The three primary aspects of establishing and maintaining interconnectedness within the global community incorporate: devotion, praxis/rituals & pilgrimage (to Melmaruvathur). First and foremost is the devotional nature of this spiritual tradition whereby one’s relationship with the Divine is at the heart of the tradition. Bhakti or devotion is expressed both individually and collectively, enacted at home (domestic) and in the temple (public). Worship rituals or puja take the form of daily or weekly services, typically held at a local temple or worship center. Second, there are shared values among these spiritual communities which are demonstrated through ritual forms which emphasis a preference for gender and caste equality, collective ritual performance, and women’s leadership and ritual authority (rather than male Brahmin priests). Third, there is a profound regard for pilgrimage to Melmaruvathur, the founding location; this is the site of the Mother temple and the samadhi shrine (2023) of this tradition's spiritual leader or Guru.

Rather than curtailing these elements of community-building and belonging at the onset of the pandemic lockdowns and social distancing, the Adhiparasakthi organization and local communities found ways to adapt. There was a concerted effort to implement additional means whereby the organization headquarters (India) could expand global community engagement and virtual connections to Melmaruvathur. Both new and improved methods of communications and media were developed alongside traditional events and now continue to be utilized across continents in global and local iterations.

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