Arya Samaj in Suriname

[2] The arrival of Arya Samaj preachers in Suriname, in 1929, caused a rift in the Hindu community, between the followers of Sanātanī and the Ārya Samāj.

[3] The Ārya Samāj was initially established in Suriname in 1911, when Professor Bhai Parmānand, a Vedic missionary from India, visited the West Indies.

[6] Now they started to organise joint actions against the Muslims, because they slaughtered cows, animals the Hindus regard as very holy.

Pandit Sukul and his wife built a new Aryan mandir in Paramaribo, but they refused to put this house of worship under the umbrella of Arya Diwaker.

In the 1950s the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha Suriname also founded an orphanage and boarding school which they named after Mahatmā Gandhi.

[11] Already in 1947 a Caribbean Vedic Parishad was established on the initiative of Solomon Moosai-Maharaj, one of the prominent members of the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha of Trinidad.

[12] On 25 November 1951 another Aryan organisation was founded, the Shrimati Prantik Arya Pratinidhi Sabha Suriname with Pandit Ramdew Raghoebier in a major position.

[13] In the 1990s the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha Suriname still existed, but its orphanage and boarding school was closed and its temple fell apart.

This is confirmed by the opening by Arya Diwaker of Suriname's probably biggest and most beautiful Hindu temple in Paramaribo on 11 February 2001.