Hinduism in Australia
Hinduism is a minority religion in Australia consisting of more than 440,300 followers, making up 1.9% of the population as of the 2016 census. Hinduism is the fastest growing religion in Australia mostly through immigration. Hinduism is also one of the most youthful religions in Australia, with 34% and 66% of Hindus being under the age of 14 and 34 respectively. The rapid increase in the population has fostered the creation of numerous Hindu enclaves within Australia.
In the nineteenth century, the British first brought Hindus from India to Australia to work on cotton and sugar plantations. Many remained as small businessmen, working as camel drivers, merchants and hawkers, selling goods between small rural communities. Nowadays Hindus are well educated professionals in fields such as medicine, engineering, commerce and information technology, constituting a model minority. The Hindus in Australia are mostly of Indian origin, with considerable number being of Sri Lankan, Fijian, Malaysian, Singapore, Nepalese origin.
As a community, Hindus live peacefully and in harmony with other local populations. They have established many temples and other religious meeting places and celebrate most Hindu festivals.
History
The following dates briefly outline the arrival of Hinduism.- As early as 300AD – Indonesian Hindu merchants make contact with Australian Aborigines.
- 1788 – Indian crews from Bay of Bengal came to Australia on trading ships.
- 1816 – Domestic servants in European households left the port of Calcutta to take up labouring work in Sydney.
- 1844 – P. Friell who had previously lived in India, brought 25 domestic workers from India to Sydney and these included a few women and children.
- 1850s – A Hindu Sindhi merchant, Shri Pammull, built a family opal trade in Melbourne that has prosperously continued with his third-to fourth-generation descendants.
- 1857 – The census showed a mere 277 Hindus in Victoria. The gold rush years attracted many Indians to Australia and across the borders to the gold mines in Victoria.
- 1893 – The census showed that 521 Hindus were living in New South Wales.
- 1901 – Just about 800 Indians lived in Australia, the majority of them lived in northern NSW and Queensland.
- 1911 – The census counted 3698 Hindus in the entire country.
- 1921 – Less than 2200 Indians lived in Australia.
- 1971 – Swami Prabhupada arrives in Australia and founded first Hare Krishna centre in Sydney.
- 1977 – The first Hindu temple in Australia, the Sri Mandir Temple, was built. Established by three devotees; Dr Prem Shankar, Dr Padmanabn Shrindhar Prabhu and Dr Anand, who bought an old house in Auburn NSW and paid $12000.00 to convert it into a temple.
- 1981 – The census recorded 12,466 Hindus in Victoria and 12,256 in NSW from a total of 41,730 in the entire country.
- 1985 – A Hindu society, the Saiva Manram, was formed to build a temple for Lord Murukan. Since its inception, Lord Murukan has been called 'Sydney Murukan'. The Saiva Manram has worked hard for nearly ten years to build a temple for Lord Murukan.
- 1986 – According to the 1986 census, the number of Hindus in Australia surpasses 21,000.
- 1991 – According to the 1991 census, the number of Hindus in Australia surpasses 43,000.
- 1996 – Hindus with their birthplace in India made up 31 per cent of all Hindus in Australia. But the census also showed there were 67,270 Hindus living in Australia.
- 2001 – According to the 2001 census, the number of Hindus in Australia surpasses 95,000.
- 2003 – Sri Karphaga Vinayakar Temple was formed to build a temple for Lord Ganesha/Ganapathi/Vinayakar. Since its inception, Lord Ganesh has been called 'Sydney Ganesh Temple'. "www.vinayakar.org.au"
- 2006 – According to the 2006 census, the number of Hindus in Australia surpasses 145,000.
- 2011 – According to the 2011 census, the number of Hindus in Australia surpasses 275,000.
- 2015 – Daniel Mookhey becomes the first Australian MP to be sworn into office by swearing his/her oath on the Bhagavad Gita.
- 2016 - 2016 Census data states that Hindus comprise almost 2% of the Australian population, surpassing the percentage of Hindus in Pakistan.
- 2018 - Kaushaliya Vaghela becomes the first Indian-born Hindu Member of Parliament in any Australian Parliament.
Demographics
Hindu population by year
| Year | Percent | Increase |
| 1986 | 0.14% | - |
| 1991 | 0.25% | +0.11% |
| 1996 | 0.38% | +0.13% |
| 2001 | 0.51% | +0.13% |
| 2006 | 0.75% | +0.24% |
| 2011 | 1.28% | +0.53% |
| 2016 | 1.90% | +0.62% |
Hindus by state or territory
Data from the 2011 Census showed that all states apart from New South Wales had their Hindu population double from the 2006 census. New South Wales has had the largest number of Hindus since at least 2001.| State or territory | Population 2016 census | Percentage 2016 census | Population 2011 census | Percentage 2011 census | 2011–2016 growth | Reference |
| New South Wales | 181,402 | 2.4% | 119,843 | 1.7% | +61,559 | |
| Victoria | 134,939 | 2.3% | 83,102 | 1.6% | +51,837 | |
| Queensland | 45,961 | 1.0% | 28,609 | 0.7% | +17,352 | |
| Western Australia | 38,739 | 1.6% | 21,048 | 0.9% | +17,691 | |
| South Australia | 22,922 | 1.4% | 13,616 | 0.9% | +9,306 | |
| Australian Capital Territory | 10,211 | 2.6% | 6,053 | 1.7% | +4,158 | |
| Northern Territory | 3,562 | 1.6% | 1,642 | 0.8% | +1,920 | |
| Tasmania | 2,554 | 0.5% | 1,608 | 0.3% | +946 |
The majority of Australian Hindus live along the Eastern Coast of Australia, mainly in the cities of Melbourne and Sydney. About 39% of Hindus lived in Greater Sydney, 29% in Greater Melbourne, and 8% each in Greater Brisbane and Greater Perth. The states and territories with the highest proportion of Hindus are the Australian Capital Territory and New South Wales, whereas those with the lowest are Queensland and Tasmania.
According to the 2006 Census, 44.16% of all Australians who were born in India were Hindu, so were 47.20% of those born in Fiji, 1.84% born in Indonesia, 3.42% from Malaysia, and 18.61% from Sri Lanka.
In Tasmania, Hinduism is practised mainly by the ethnic Lhotshampa from
Bhutan.
Hindu converts
Hinduism is also more popular among the Anglo-Australians. Many Caucasians in Australia also visit the Hindu temple at Carrum Downs and learn Vedic Hindu scriptures in Tamil. The ISKCON Hindu community in Australia has 60,000 members - 70% of whom are Hindus from overseas, with the other 30% being Anglo Australians. The 2016 Census noted 415 Hindus belonging to the indigenous community of Australia.Languages
Less than 17% of the Australian Hindus use English as their home language. The number of Australian Hindus speaking various languages in their home according to the 2006 census:- Indian migrants speak Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, etc.
- Nepali by immigrants from Nepal, Bhutan and India.
- Fijian Hindi and Fijian by migrants from Fiji
- Mauritian Creole by migrants from Mauritius
- Balinese and Indonesian by Indonesian migrants
- Other languages such as French, Malay, Sinhalese, Italian, Vietnamese, etc.
| Language | Y 2011 | Y 2016 | Change |
| Total | 275,534 | 440,300 | 59.80% |
| Hindi | 81,892 | 119,284 | 45.66% |
| English | 39,800 | 58,855 | 47.88% |
| Tamil | 36,940 | 53,766 | 45.55% |
| Nepali | 21,766 | 50,629 | 132.61% |
| Gujarati | 29,250 | 45,884 | 56.87% |
| Telugu | 16,717 | 30,723 | 83.78% |
| Punjabi | 9,442 | 16,546 | 75.24% |
| Malayalam | 5,938 | 11,687 | 96.82% |
| Marathi | 8,774 | 11,589 | 32.08% |
| Kannada | 5,383 | 8,783 | 63.16% |
| Bengali | 5,685 | 8,481 | 49.18% |
| South Asian nfd | 3,531 | 3,770 | 6.77% |
| Indonesian | 1,171 | 1,755 | 49.87% |
| French | 1,180 | 1,401 | 18.73% |
| Fijian Hindi | 572 | 1,257 | 119.76% |
| Mauritian Creole | 514 | 883 | 71.79% |
| Konkani | 609 | 845 | 38.75% |
| Oriya | 282 | 694 | 146.10% |
| Indo-Aryan nfd | 1,988 | 633 | -68.16% |
| Malay | 435 | 591 | 35.86% |
| Tulu | 348 | 543 | 56.03% |
| Sindhi | 277 | 521 | 88.09% |
| Assamese | 165 | 302 | 83.03% |
| Vietnamese | 109 | 225 | 106.42% |
| Fijian | 129 | 213 | 65.12% |
| Sinhalese | 232 | 163 | -29.74% |
| Italian language | 158 | 158 | 0.00% |
| Balinese | 129 | 156 | 20.93% |
Hindu temples in Australia
The first Hindu religious centre was a Hare Krishna centre founded by Swami Prabhupada in Sydney. It was in 1977 the first Hindu temple in Australia, the Sri Mandir Temple, was built. Now, there are around forty-three Hindu temples in Australia.- Sydney Durga Temple
- BAPS Temple Melbourne
Contemporary society