IANS
DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA, September 8, 2003: South Africa’s first national convention on Hindu unity has been hailed as “an unqualified success” by South African Hindu Maha Sabha president Ashwin Trikamjee. The two-day conference was attended by 370 delegates from 108 Hindi, Tamil, Gujarati and Telugu linguistic and community groups from across the country to discuss a wide range of issues. There was also one representative from Zimbabwe. The majority of South Africa’s 1.2 million people of Indian origin are of Tamil descent. South African President Thabo Mbeki, who opened the conference, lauded the Hindu community for its role in helping the country achieve democracy. He also highlighted the significant status that the community enjoyed in relation to the other religions in the National Religious Forum, of which Trikamjee is chairman. Trikamjee said the conference discussed the theme of uniting various Hindu communities, greater involvement by Hindu youths in South Africa, greater involvement by all Hindus in social issues, education, having a uniform body to regulate practices by priests, and initiatives to stem conversion to other faiths, mainly Christianity and, to a lesser extent, Islam. Trikamjee said “The general view was that rather than criticizing other religious groupings, we should rather strengthen our own religious practices and beliefs among our people. There was a strong feeling that all this should start at home. Parents should know their religion to inculcate their religions in their children. If you have a strong religious base, there will be no problem with conversion.” Trikamjee felt that when poor Hindus were in trouble, financially or socially, there had to be some kind of a support structure from within their own religious grouping. “This is lacking at the moment and is being exploited by missionaries.” Trikamjee added.