Communicating Sustainability within Britain’s Hindu Community

Sita Rama Das, Martin Haigh and Sheila Chauhan
Additional contact information
Sita Rama Das: Lotus Trust, The Lotus Trust, The Manor, Hilfield Lane, Aldenham, Watford, Herts WD25 8EZ, UK
Martin Haigh: Department of Social Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Gipsy Lane Campus, Oxford OX3 0BP, UK
Sheila Chauhan: Lotus Trust, The Lotus Trust, The Manor, Hilfield Lane, Aldenham, Watford, Herts WD25 8EZ, UK

Sustainability, 2014, vol. 6, issue 2, 1-23

Abstract: Focusing on the UK’s Hindu community, this explores some modes for the communication of pro-sustainability messages and their affective strength. These campaigns employ the community-center role of many UK Hindu temples to connect Hindu congregations to the cause of environmental sustainability through the medium of Hindu scripture and tradition. The international Hindu Bhumi Project (and its larger “Many Heavens, One Earth” interfaith initiative) provide an umbrella for such pedagogic initiatives. Two are described. First is the festival-ground-based Karma to Climate Change (K2CC) campaign, which encourages pilgrims to pledge pro-sustainability lifestyle changes as part of their religious practice. The second, the Ahimsa Project, is devoted to the popularization and production of ethically pure, cruelty/slaughter free milk, which encourages people to develop greater empathy for the wellbeing of their fellow creatures and, ultimately, to abhor the casual slaughter of animals for meat. These projects are driven by the enthusiasm and concern of a younger generation of British-born Hindu people and their impacts are felt both through the campaigns themselves and the family structures of the volunteers who participate.

Keywords: community education; British Hindu minority; Hindu diaspora; faith-based environmentalism; Bhumi Project; K2CC—Karma to Climate Change Project; Ahimsa Project; slaughter-free dairy production (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/6/2/718/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/6/2/718/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:6:y:2014:i:2:p:718-740:d:32778

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().