Hinduism in Australia

Hinduism is the third-largest religion in Australia, with more than 684,002 adherents, accounting for 2.7% of the population as of the 2021 Census. Hinduism is the fastest growing religion 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 nineteenth century, the British authorities 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. Today, many 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 origin; other origins include those from Sri Lanka, Fiji, Malaysia, Bali, Cham, Singapore, Mauritius, and Nepal.

History

The following dates briefly outline the arrival of Hinduism.

As early as 300AD – Indonesian Hindu merchants make contact with Australian Aborigines.
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.
1836 – 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.
1890 – The census showed that 521 Hindus were living in New South Wales.
1907 – About 800 Indians lived in Australia; most lived in northern New South Wales and Queensland.
1911 – The census counted 3,698 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.
1995 - Completion of the Brisbane Selva Vinayakar Kovil the consecration ceremony was held on 5 February 1995.
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.
2016 – 2016 Census data states that Hindus comprise almost 2% of the Australian population.
2018 – Kaushaliya Vaghela becomes the first Indian-born Hindu Member of Parliament in any Australian Parliament.

Demographics

Hindu population by year

Year	Percent	Increase
1986	0.14%	-
1991	0.25%	+0.11%
1996	0.38%	+0.13%
2001	0.51%	+0.13%
2006	0.75%	+0.24%
2011	1.28%	+0.53%
2016	1.90%	+0.62%
2021	2.7%	+0.80%

Hindus by state or territory

As per 2021 census, Hindus form 2.7% of Australia's total population. From 2011 to 2021, in 10 years Hindus have increased from 275,521 to 684,002, a growth of 408,462 or 148.2%, making Hinduism fastest growing religion of Australia.

State or territory	2021 census	% 2021 census	2016 census	% 2016 census	2011 census	% 2011 census	2011–21 growth	Reference
New South Wales	273,780	3.4%	181,402	2.4%	119,843	1.7%	+153,937 128.4%
Victoria	214,058	3.3%	134,939	2.3%	83,102	1.6%	+130,956 157.6%
Queensland	69,520	1.3%	45,961	1.0%	28,609	0.7%	+40,911 143.0%
Western Australia	52,055	2.0%	38,739	1.6%	21,048	0.9%	+31,007 147.3%
South Australia	38,105	2.1%	22,922	1.4%	13,616	0.9%	+24,489 179.8%
Capital Territory	20,505	4.5%	10,211	2.6%	6,053	1.7%	+14,452 238.7%
Northern Territory	6,236	2.7%	3,562	1.6%	1,642	0.8%	+4,594 280.0%
Tasmania	9,724	1.7%	2,554	0.5%	1,608	0.3%	+8,116 504.7%

The majority of Australian Hindus live along the Eastern Coast of Australia, mainly in the cities of Melbourne and Sydney. About 39% of Hindus lived in Greater Sydney, 29% in Greater Melbourne, and 8% each in Greater Brisbane and Greater Perth. The states and territories with the highest proportion of Hindus are the Australian Capital Territory and New South Wales, whereas those with the lowest are Queensland and Tasmania.
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.
In Tasmania, Hinduism is practised mainly by the Lhotshampa community from Bhutan.

Hindu converts

Hinduism is also more popular among the Anglo-Australians. Many Caucasians in Australia also visit the Hindu temple at Carrum Downs and learn Vedic Hindu scriptures in Tamil. The ISKCON Hindu community in Australia has 60,000 members - 70% of whom are Hindus from overseas, with the other 30% being Anglo Australians. The 2016 Census noted 415 Hindus belonging to the indigenous community of Australia.

Languages

According to the 2021 Census, 13.0% of Australian Hindus speak English at home. English is the third most common language spoken by Australian Hindus, behind Hindi and Nepali. The number of Australian Hindus speaking various languages in their home according to the 2006 census:

Indian migrants speak Hindi, Tamil, Gujarati, Telugu, Punjabi, Malayalam, Marathi, Kannada etc.
Tamil by immigrants from India, Sri lanka, Singapore, Malaysia, Mauritius
Nepali by immigrants from Nepal, Bhutan and India.
Bengali by immigrants from India and Bangladesh.
Fijian Hindi and Fijian by migrants from Fiji
Mauritian Creole by migrants from Mauritius
Balinese and Indonesian by Indonesian migrants
Other languages such as French, Malay, Sinhalese, Italian, Vietnamese, etc.

TT	Y11	Y16	Y21	Hindus as % of language speakers
Total	275,534	440,300	684,002	2.70%
Hindi	81,892	119,284	155,242	78.8%
Nepali	21,766	50,629	111,353	83.7%
English	39,800	58,855	88,832	0.5%
Gujarati	29,250	45,884	71,976	88.5%
Tamil	36,940	53,766	69,807	73.2%
Telugu	16,717	30,723	52,583	90.2%
Punjabi	9,442	16,546	36,367	15.2%
Marathi	8,774	11,589	19,780	88.8%
Malayalam	5,938	11,687	17,772	22.6%
Kannada	5,383	8,783	13,419	91.2%
Bengali	5,685	8,481	11,810	16.8%
Fijian Hindi	572	1,257	2,407	50.5%
Indonesian	1,171	1,755	2,215	3.0%
French	1,180	1,401	1,425	2.0%
Konkani	609	845	1,370	37.6%
Odia	282	694	1,338	95.5%
Sindhi	277	521	892	33.9%
Tulu	348	543	845	93.2%
Mauritian Creole	514	883	813	22.5%
South Asian nfd	3,531	3,770	548	7.8%
Malay	435	591	487	2.3%
Assamese	165	302	479	82.3%
Italian	158	158	322	0.1%
Fijian	129	213	198	1.9%
Balinese	129	156	193	80.8%
Vietnamese	109	225	192	0.0%
Sinhalese	232	163	167	0.2%
Indo-Aryan nfd	1,988	633	NA	NA

Hindu temples in Australia

There are more than forty Hindu temples in Australia.

Sri Karphaga Vinayakar Temple, Sydney
Sydney Murugan Temple, Westmead
Sai Mandir, Regents Park, Sydney
Minto Shiva Temple, Sydney
Sri Venkateswara Temple, Helensburgh, New South Wales
Raghavendra Swamy Mutt, Toongabbie, New South Wales
Sydney Durga Temple, Sydney
Perth Shiva Temple, Perth
Bala Murugan Temple, Perth
Shree Swaminarayan Temple, Perth
BAPS Temple, Melbourne
Sri Venkata Krishna Brundavana, Melbourne
Sri Venkata Krishna Vrundavana, Sydney
Shiva Vishnu Temple, Melbourne
Durga Temple, Melbourne
Shirdi Sai Sansthan, Melbourne
Sankatamochan Hanuman Mandir, Melbourne
Melbourne Murugan Temple, Melbourne
Sri Vakrathunda Vinayagar Temple, Melbourne
Perth Ram Temple, Perth

Contemporary society

According to a national survey reported in 2019, Hindu Australians continues to experience the highest rates of discrimination even after being the model minority. The survey showed that a three quarters of respondents had experienced discrimination on public transport or on the street. The total fertility rate among Hindus is also the second least in Australia with 1.81, which is lower than Christians and Muslims.

Overseas territories

Hinduism is practised by the small number of Malaysian Indians in Christmas Island. According to the 2021 census, Hinduism constitute 0.6% of its population.

Attacks on Hindu Community

2023 Jan: Three Hindu temples were vandalized across Australia namely the BAPS Swaminarayan Temple of Melbourne, Shiva Vishnu Temple of Carrum Downs, Victoria and ISKCON Temple of Melbourne with anti-Hindu graffiti by Khalistani extremists. High Commission of India to Australia condemned the repeated hate-crimes and the Australian High Commission to India assured support and solidarity with the Hindu community of Australia. Several top Australian lawmakers condemned the attacks on Hindu community's places of worship and stressed importance of respect in a multicultural society.2023 Feb: Khalistani extremists made threatening phone calls to a prominent Hindu temple in Brisbane. The perpetrators demanded the temple raise Khalistan slogans if they wished to celebrate Mahashivratri peacefully. The calls came after three Hindu temples in Australia were defaced with anti-India graffiti, allegedly by Khalistani extremists.2023 Mar: The Shree Laxmi Narayan Temple in Brisbane was vandalized by Khalistani extremists with anti-Hindu graffiti on the walls of temple. Sarah L Gates, the Director of Hindu Human Rights suspects that the hate crime is an attempt to terrorize Hindu community by members of Sikhs For Justice headed by Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, an individual designated as terrorist by the government of India. However the Australian Police claims they have no suspects or leads behind the vandalism.2023 May: The BAPS Swaminarayan Temple of Sydney was vandalized with anti-Hindu graffiti allegedly by Khalistano extremists. Andrew Charlton, Member of Parliament from Parramatta expressed regret and visited the temple for helping the temple volunteers in cleaning the graffiti. Michelle Rowland, Minister of Communications condemned the vandalism. The Hindu Council of Australia called it not only an attack on sanctity of temple but also an insult to Australian Hindus and demanded investigation and justice.