The Role of Visiting Indian Hindu Missionaries in their Attempts to ‘Reform’ Hinduism in South Africa, 1933–1935

This paper aims to add to our understanding of the cultural exchanges that took place between people of far away communities during the early twentieth century by looking at a few visiting Hindu missionaries in South Africa. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, Hindu Arya Samaj missionaries began arriving in the country to propagate Hinduism and promote the reformist message. While the work of travelling Hindu missionaries in other places where Hindus settled in large numbers is well documented, much less is known about their work in South Africa. This paper tries to fill that void by looking at a few missionaries and the ideas that they tried to communicate in a particular period in the history of Hindus in South Africa. These missionaries who travelled across the globe and conducted lectures, formed religious institutions and worked with existing institutions in their attempts to propagate the Hindu religion, were very popular in South Africa and thousands attended the lectures that they conducted throughout the country. They were also crucial in motivating local Hindu leaders to establish bodies to unite the very heterogeneous group of Hindus and overcome sectional divisions. However, once they departed the enthusiasm shown soon disappeared and organisations that sought to unite Hindus fell into periods of inactivity. Looking at one period in which there were a few Hindu missionaries in the country together, this paper looks at the message that they tried to communicate, how they saw the position of Hindus and Indians in South Africa and address some of ways in which South Africans responded to the missionaries.