History
The Ārya Samāj was initially established in Suriname in 1911, when Professor Bhai Parmānand, a Vedic missionary from India, visited the West Indies. Various local Ārya Samāj associations were established in the Surinamese villages in these years. The arrival of another preacher from India, Pandit Mehtā Jaimīnī, on 15 June 1929, led to the formation of an umbrella organisation, the Arya Dewakar Maha Sabha, or in Dutch the Vereniging Arya Dewaker on 29 September 1929. Mostly the organisation is briefly called Arya Dewaker. Arya Dewaker means 'Aryan Sun'. On 5 February 1930, the organisation was registered as a religious body. In 1932 Arya Dewaker started the training of Vedic priests and on 28 October 1933 it opened an orphanage and boarding school named Swami Dayanand Orphanage.
The emergence of the Ārya Samāj caused much trouble between the adherents of the new movement, referred to as Ārya Samājīs, and the followers of the Sanātan Dharm, who wished to remain loyal to the tradition of their ancestors. There were fierce debates and sometimes even fights between them. However, according to the Surinamese Muslim East-Indian Rahmat Khan the two parties found each other in attacking together a new enemy in 1933. Now they started to organise joint actions against the Muslims, because they slaughtered cows, animals the Hindus regard as very holy. In the end the actions resulted in a boycot of Muslims by the Hindus. It was not before 1943 that the boycot was stopped. However, according to Ellen Bal and Kathinka Sinha Kerkhoff 'the movement was not very widespread' and 'did not encompass all the members of the two groups'.
In 1936 Arya Dewaker built a temple, but it lasted until 1947 before the house of worship was officially inaugurated. One year later, in 1948, the organisation established the Arya Mahila Samaj (Arya Women's Society), which assisted in the orphanage and in Vedic preaching. In the same year the first female pandit was ordained. And in 1958 a second orphanage was built.
Read more about this topic: Arya Samaj In Suriname
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