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- Jan/30/24 2:00:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in the history of the oldest religion in the world, January 22, 2024, marked the beginning of a new era for 1.2 billion Hindus across the world, including a million Hindus in Canada.
After centuries of anticipation and immense sacrifices, the divine temple at Ayodhya was inaugurated with Bhagwan Shri Ram’s “Pran Pratishtha” ceremony, an act that transforms an idol into a deity.
Like Hindus across Canada at about 115 Hindu temples and events, I witnessed the live coverage of this emotional moment at Ottawa's Hindu temple.
The birthplace of Hindu Dharma, India, that is Bharat, is rebuilding its civilization to emerge as a major global economic and geopolitical power. Canada and India are natural partners for sharing economic opportunities and addressing global challenges.
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- Nov/3/23 10:59:53 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, every year, November is Hindu Heritage Month. This provides us the opportunity to recognize, preserve, celebrate and promote Hindu culture and heritage.
Hindus are close to one million strong in Canada. They have come to this wonderful country from all across the world. It is important for us to preserve our Hindu culture and heritage in Canada for our future generations. Hindu Canadians are the most peaceful, highly educated and hard-working community, and hence, it is a successful community. Hindu Canadians have significantly contributed and continue to do so for the socio-economic development of Canada. We have immensely enriched the rich Canadian multicultural fabric.
Though the ancient Hindu heritage is alive and growing, it freely adapts to any society or civilization and also gives to whoever it comes in contact with. I wish all members a happy Hindu Heritage Month.
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- Jun/12/23 1:58:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I wish to speak about a despicable float in a recent Brampton parade.
Anti-India Khalistan supporters in Canada have reached a new low by celebrating the assassination of Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi with her cutout in a white sari splattered in blood and the cutouts of her bodyguards, turned killers, brandishing and pointing guns.
Tolerating the glorification of terrorist acts goes against everything our country, Canada, believes in. Anti-India and anti-Hindu groups in Canada, with their recent attacks on Hindu temples and their mounting a campaign against public display of flags with the Hindu religious sacred symbol Aum, are sending a dreaded message to Hindu Canadians.
I again call on authorities at all levels of government to take notice and initiate action before this hatred escalates to real and deadly physical violence.
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- Feb/16/23 2:01:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is with pain and anguish that I state Ram Mandir, a Hindu temple in Mississauga, has become the latest target of a hate crime.
In recent times, other Hindu temples across Canada have been targets of hate crimes by anti-Hindu and anti-India groups. These groups first joined hands on social media to target Hindu-Canadians and started the trend of Hinduphobia. They have now moved on to physical attacks on Hindu temples. There are reports of individual Hindu Canadians also being targeted.
As I have said before, Canada needs to take this issue seriously and address the growing Hinduphobia. As Canadians, we need to practise, celebrate and share our many different religious faiths and heritages peacefully. Let us pledge to continue to do so.
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- Feb/1/23 2:02:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the recent hate crime on Gauri Shankar Hindu Mandir in Brampton is just one of the many attacks in recent times against Hindu temples in Canada by anti-Hindu and anti-India groups. As with Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, resulting in hate crimes against our mosques and synagogues and causing pain to our Muslim and Jewish brothers and sisters, Hindu Canadians are experiencing the same pain due to rising Hinduphobia. As predicted by a study, Hinduphobia on social media is now graduating to physical attacks.
I call upon Canada to take serious note of this alarming trend and respond appropriately. As Canadians, we practise, celebrate and share our many different religious faiths and heritage peacefully. Let us pledge to continue to do so.
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- Nov/30/22 2:11:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on behalf of 830,000 Hindu Canadians, I would like to thank all members of the House for unanimously supporting my motion to proclaim November as Hindu Heritage Month.
Hindu Canadians have come to Canada from all countries in South Asia, several countries in Africa and the Caribbean, and many other places. We are bonded by our faith and heritage.
To mark this historic beginning and a new era for Hindu Canadians, I raised a flag with the Hindu sacred symbol, Om, on Parliament Hill.
Hindu Canadians are the most peaceful, educated and successful group in Canada.
I also thank all of those who recognize the contributions of the Hindu heritage to mankind and the contributions that Hindu Canadians have made and continue to make to the socio-economic development and cultural heritage of Canada.
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- Oct/25/22 2:10:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on behalf of all Canadians, in particular Indo-Canadians, I wish to congratulate Rishi Sunak on becoming the first person of colour and the first Hindu to become the prime minister of the United Kingdom.
His achievement is a proud moment for over 1.2 billion people of Indian heritage all across the world, including in Canada. It is a Diwali gift to about 700,000 Hindu Canadians. For me, another matter of interest is that his wife, Akshata Murty, comes from Bangalore, the same place I come from, and speaks the same language, Kannada.
I hope Rishi Sunak will be an inspiration for the next generation of Hindu Canadians and will motivate them to step forward for a more active role in public service.
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- Sep/22/22 7:10:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, namaste.
I would like to begin by thanking my colleagues from all political parties for strongly backing the motion to designate November as Hindu heritage month. I am humbled by the support of dozens of organizations across Canada and from thousands of Canadians.
Hindu Canadians are a peaceful, hard-working community. They have made and continue to make significant contributions to Canada’s socio-economic development and cultural heritage. On Hindu heritage, Hindus have an ancient, magnificent and robust inheritance, which they have received from numerous sources: our wisdom traditions, our religious rites and rituals, our literature, the many arts and crafts, our elders, our fairs and festivals and, above all, from the many samskaras or sacraments in our home. That heritage not only gives us a drishti or world view; it also defines our purusharthas or aims of life and equally defines our sanskriti or culture. In short, the Hindu heritage defines our dharma.
What is striking about such an ancient civilization is not only the unbroken tradition of 5,000 years of recorded history but also the plurality or diversity of our tradition. Even in the absence of a monolithic religious dispensation, we Hindus, whether in Canada or anywhere in the world, are connected by an invisible thread that binds us together: the strength of our Hindu heritage.
Our wisdom traditions, which start from the Vedas and then flow into the Upanishads or forest discourses, followed by our puranas or our songs and stories, are philosophically rich and form the foundation of our temple traditions. It is the same vast heritage that informs our costume and cuisine, our habits and behaviour, our arts and crafts. The Hindu heritage does not restrict itself to religious matters: We have a strong aesthetic foundation, which leads to the celebration of saundarya, or what is beautiful.
We celebrate the beautiful in our lived lives through stories and paintings, song and dance, colour and cuisine, festivals and family events. Though ancient, our heritage is alive and growing. It is open to influences from other civilizations and freely adapts and gives to whomever we come in contact with.
Thus it is that for us Hindus, Canada is a comforting and embracing home away from home. For many people in the world, the term “cultural heritage” is still primarily tangible or material cultural heritage. There is a need to recognize, preserve, celebrate and promote the Hindu heritage as defined by UNESCO’s intangible or living cultural heritage. This intangible or living cultural heritage includes oral traditions such as songs and dramatic performances; performing arts, such as vocal and instrumental music and dance; social practices, such as rituals and festivals; traditional knowledge, such as cuisine and medicine; and traditional craftsmanship, such as pottery, metalwork and jewellery.
Proclaiming Hindu heritage month provides an opportunity to remember and celebrate Hindu heritage and the contributions of Hindu-Canadians to our great nation, as well as to educate both current and future generations.
I would like to again thank my colleagues in this House, dozens of organizations across Canada and the thousands of Canadians who have reached out to me in support of this motion. This support is so Canadian, in that people with different political ideologies and people agnostic of any political ideology are all coming together in recognizing and promoting Hindu heritage in Canada.
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- Sep/20/22 2:00:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, recent attacks on Hindu temples in Toronto, including BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir and Vishnu Mandir, must be condemned by all as hate crimes.
Hindu Canadians arrived here from South Asia, Africa, Caribbean but mostly from India. They are the most peaceful and hard-working community and keep a low profile focusing on their families and children’s education.
The increasingly vocal and well-organized anti-India and anti-Hindu groups in Canada has resulted in increasing anti-Hindu sentiments. Hindu Canadians are legitimately concerned about rising Hinduphobia in Canada.
I urge all levels of government to note this and take remedial actions now. Let us all work hard to ensure that people of all religious faiths continue to peacefully coexist in Canada.
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- May/2/22 11:22:18 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, Hindu Canadians, like all other Canadians, stepped forward and helped. Hindu charitable institutions organized vaccination drives, organized food for the needy, and helped those in need who were struck by this pandemic.
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- May/2/22 11:17:49 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, Hindu heritage is adaptable. Wherever it goes, it adapts to the communities in which it resides. In the same way, Hindu Canadians, who have been coming to this wonderful country for more than 100 years, have adapted to the culture and heritage of Canada and Canadians. Just to give one example, it is very common to see Hindu-Canadian families lighting Christmas trees during Christmastime in Canada, and that is the beauty of Hindu Canadians.
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- May/2/22 11:04:41 a.m.
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moved:
That, in the opinion of the House, the government should recognize the contributions that Hindu Canadians have made to the socio-economic development of Canada, and their services to the Canadian society, the richness of Hindu Heritage and its vast contribution to the world of arts and science, astronomy to medicine, and its culture and traditions and the importance of educating and reflecting upon it for our future generations in Canada by declaring November, every year, Hindu Heritage Month.
He said: Mr. Speaker, namaste. Namaskar. This is the Hindu greeting with palms held together and centred in front of the chest while bowing the head down slightly. It means “the divine in me bows to the divine in you”. It shows respect and humility.
Our wonderful country Canada is an ongoing successful story of a nation with extraordinary cultural, ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity among its residents. Hindus started arriving in Canada more than 100 years back. There are about 600,000 Hindu Canadians, and they arrived here from India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, other South Asian and Southeast Asian countries, African countries, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, other Caribbean countries and many other places.
Hindu Canadians have made and continue to make significant contributions to Canada’s socio-economic, political and cultural heritage as doctors, scientists, engineers, lawyers, business leaders, artists, academics, government officials, elected officials, etc. From building institutions to being philanthropists, Hindu Canadians have excelled in all services and sectors and in all walks of life.
This month, the Angus Reid Institute, in partnership with Cardus, published the results of a survey that offers a comprehensive and first-of-its-kind look at the faith journeys of Canadians across the religious spectrum. According to this survey, Canadians raised in the Hindu faith tend to be more privately faithful. They do not necessarily gather as formally and frequently, but nonetheless profess a strong personal connection to their religion. While for many Canadians of Hindu faith attending a temple is a less frequent activity, many have a shrine within their home. Finally, among the seven religious groups, Hinduism is one of only two that had positive views from Canadians in every religious faith group.
For over thousands of years, Hindus have contributed to mankind's deep knowledge of mathematics, including the invention of zero, architecture, medicine, astronomy, chemistry, navigation, metallurgy and engineering, just to name a few fields. Yoga and meditation are also Hindus' important contributions to world civilization.
On Hindu heritage, Hindus have an ancient, magnificent and robust inheritance, which they have received from numerous sources: our wisdom traditions, our religious rites and rituals, our literature, our many arts and crafts, our elders, our fairs and festivals and, above all, our many samskaras, or sacraments in our home. That heritage not only gives us a drishti, or world view, but defines our purusharthas, or aims of life, and equally defines our sanskriti, or culture. In short, Hindu heritage defines our dharma.
In a civilization that is so ancient, what strikes me is that it has not only an unbroken tradition of 5,000 years of recorded history, but also the plurality or diversity of our tradition. Even in the absence of a monolithic religious dispensation, we Hindus, whether in Canada or anywhere in the world, are connected by an invisible thread that binds us together. That is the strength of our Hindu heritage.
Our wisdom traditions, which start from the Vedas, flow into the Upanishads, or forest discourses, and are followed by our Puranas, or our songs and stories, are philosophically rich and form the foundation of our temple traditions. It is the same vast heritage that informs our costume and cuisine, our habits and behaviour and our arts and crafts.
Hindu heritage does not restrict itself to religious matters. We have a strong aesthetic foundation that leads to a celebration of saundarya, or what is beautiful. We celebrate beauty in our lives through stories and paintings, song and dance, colour and cuisine, festivals and many family events.
Though ancient, our heritage is alive and growing. It is open to influences from other civilizations and freely adapts and gives to whomever we come into contact with. Thus it is that, for us Hindus, Canada is a comforting and embracing home away from home.
Let me now very briefly touch on the Hinduism that is the oldest and one of the largest world religions. Hinduism is also known as sanatana dharma, or eternal natural law. Hindus believe in vasudhaiva kutumbakam: The world is one family. Hindus believe in the oneness of all living beings, everything in creation and the universe. Om is the most sacred sound and symbol of Hinduism. It is chanted aloud and is known as the sound of the universe, and it means universal consciousness.
The swastika is one of the most sacred symbols for Hindus. In Sanskrit, the word swastika means “that which brings good luck and well-being”. One of the oldest languages in the world, Sanskrit is the language of Hindu sacred texts.
While Hindus do not have one holy book, the vedas and Upanishads penned thousands of years ago teach core spiritual knowledge and philosophy. In addition, the Bhagavad Gita and Ramayana are the most loved sacred texts. The Bhagavad Gita teaches us that true knowledge is to see God in each soul. Hindus introduced the concept of ahimsa, non-violence, to the world.
I now go back to Hindu heritage. For many people in the world, cultural heritage refers primarily to tangible or material cultural heritage, such as archaeological sites, historical buildings and precious objects like sculptures, pottery and ornaments in museums. For them, they are what matter the most. There has always been an intangible or living cultural heritage underlying material manifestations that has not been promoted to the extent it deserves. This cultural knowledge is typically oral and is transmitted from elders to younger generations.
UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, describes cultural awareness or cultural knowledge as what individuals, groups, communities or nations consider as an element of their identity that guides people to respect special values, attend special places, produce and utilize certain objects and manifest certain behaviours.
The intangible, or living, cultural heritage elements related to Hindu heritage that we need to preserve, celebrate and promote are, number one, oral traditions such as songs, proverbs, tales, legends, myths, epic poetry, dramatic performances, storytelling, etc. Katha is Hindu storytelling, performances of which are ritual events that involve storytellers who recite sacred texts, such as the Puranas or Ramayana, followed by comments.
Number two is performing arts, which cover theatre, vocal and instrumental music such as Carnatic and Hindustani music, as well as dances like Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Kathakali, Kuchipudi, Manipuri, Odissi and Mohiniattam.
Number three is social practices, rituals and festive events such as Diwali, Ugadi, Holi, Navratri and Vaisakhi, new year celebrations and traditional games, etc.
Number four is traditional knowledge, traditional cuisine and traditional medicines, etc.
Number five is traditional craftsmanship, which brings together numerous traditional arts in the fields of pottery, woodwork, metalwork, jewellery, textiles and leather work.
It also makes business sense to promote culture and heritage. The arts, culture and heritage sectors of the Canadian economy generate more than $57 billion and provide close to 673,000 jobs in sectors such as music, performing arts, heritage institutions, festivals and celebrations. The activities related to safeguarding Hindu heritage, as per the UNESCO definition, cover awareness-raising, capacity-building and education, inventory-taking, documentation, research, promotion, protection, preservation, revitalization and inscription. This cultural knowledge is typically oral and is transmitted from elders to the younger generations. It is very mobile, as it transcends borders and is adopted by other nations. While it keeps its core, it allows its peripheries to be modified according to the tastes of the time and following the surrounding communities' creativity.
The Hindu-Canadian community has talented individuals, experienced practitioners and creative artists, researchers, teachers and entrepreneurs who can help with these aspects of safeguarding Hindu heritage in Canada. We can have promotional activities such as organizing storytelling events, holding photo and video exhibitions, planning competitions, organizing performing arts events and releasing promotional material through media and online platforms. There are excellent capacities among us that need to be identified and employed.
With the recent census expected to be published next October, the population of Hindu-Canadians is expected to rise much beyond 600,000. Currently, there are more than 220,000 international students from India here in Canada and a majority of them are Hindus. With many of these students expected to become permanent residents and eventually citizens following their education, the number of Hindu-Canadians is expected to go higher.
According to the Pew Research Center, in the U.S. 77% of Hindu-American adults have a college degree and nearly 50% have a postgraduate degree. While this info is not available for Canada, the numbers are probably better here.
Hindu-Canadians are a peaceful and productive community and have contributed to the socio-economic development of Canada. They have also added to the richness of the multicultural fabric of our country. Many organizations and hundreds of individuals have expressed support for this motion. I will just name two or three: the Hindu Federation, the Coalition of Hindus of North America and the Canada India Foundation.
I conclude my speech by stating that making November Hindu heritage month across Canada would allow us to recognize, preserve, celebrate and promote Hindu heritage as defined by UNESCO's intangible or living cultural heritage. Proclaiming Hindu heritage month would also provide an opportunity to remember, celebrate and educate both current and future generations about Hindu-Canadians and the important role they have played, and continue to play, in communities across Canada.
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- Feb/28/22 2:00:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on behalf of over one million Canadians of several religious faiths and, in particular, Hindu Canadians, and as being a Hindu Canadian myself, I call up members of the House and all Canadians to distinguish between the Hindu religious sacred symbol swastika and the Nazi symbol of hatred called hakenkreuz in German or “the hooked cross” in English.
In the ancient Indian language of Sanskrit, swastika means “that which brings good luck and well-being”. This ancient and greatly auspicious symbol of the Hindu religion continues to be used today at our Hindu temples, in our religious and cultural rituals, at the entrances to our homes and in our daily lives. Please stop calling the Nazi symbol of hatred a swastika.
We support the ban of the Nazi symbol of hatred, the hakenkreuz or the hooked cross, but calling it a swastika is to deny us, Hindu Canadians, our religious right and freedom to use our sacred symbol swastika in our daily lives.
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