Hinduism in Australia is a minority religion consisting of more than 275,000 individuals, representing 1.3% of the total Australian population according to the 2011 census (up from 148,119 in the 2006 census). Hinduism is one of the fastest growing religions 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.
In the 19th 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. These days 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, Sri Lankan, Fijian, Malaysia, Singapore, Nepali, and Bangladesh origin, with some originating from other parts of the Indian subcontinent including Sindh.
The majority of Australian Hindus live along the Eastern Coast of Australia and are mainly located in the cities of Melbourne and Sydney. As a community Hindus live relatively peacefully and in harmony with the local populations. They have established a number of temples and other religious meeting places and celebrate most Hindu festivals.
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.
Data from the 2011 Census showed that all states(and A.C.T and the Northern Territory) 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.
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.
Less than 17% of the Australian Hindus use English as their home language. The number of Australian Hindus speaking various languages as their home language are:
Total – 275,534
Hindi language – 81,892
English language – 39,800
Tamil language – 36,940
Gujarati language – 29,250
Nepali language – 21,766
Telugu language – 16,717
Other major languages spoken by Australian Hindus include:
Punjabi language – 19,442
Marathi language – 8,774
Malayalam language – 5,938
Bengali language – 5,685
Kannada language – 5,383
South Asian nfd – 3,531
Indo-Aryan nfd – 1,988
French language- 1,180
Indonesian language – 1,171,
Konkani language – 609
Fijian Hindustani – 572
Mauritian Creole – 514
Tulu language- 348
Oriya language- 282
Sindhi language – 277
Sinhalese language – 232
Assamese language – 165
Italian language- 158
Fijian language – 129
Balinese language- 129
Vietnamese language – 109
