Howdy, Hanuman! In Texas, Statue of Union meets politics of division

TOI correspondent from Washington: Everything is supposed to be bigger in Texas, a state where cats are the size of dogs, dogs are the size of European cars, where you can fit two Germanys and 20 Belgiums - or 158 of the world's smaller countries into it.

But apparently, Texas's Christian conservatives are not capacious enough to accommodate a large - very large - statue of Hanuman.

Amid an uprush of "Hanumania" in India following a Hanuman Ansh movie documenting the life of the mystic Neem Karoli Baba, the largest state in contiguous America has been witnessing a blazing row over a 90-foot Hanuman statue towering over the Sri Ashtalakshmi Temple in Sugar Land outside Houston.


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Conceived as a monument to strength, devotion, and unity by local Hindu groups, and officially called the Statue of the Union, the icon has become an unlikely lightning rod in Texas' increasingly heated argument over immigration, religion, identity and what counts as "American."

The 90-foot, 90-ton figure was officially unveiled in August 2024 after a three-day consecration ceremony and is counted as the fourth-tallest statue in the US, behind the Birth of the New World, the Statue of Liberty, and Florida's Pegasus and Dragon.

But no sooner was it installed, it attracted controversy, with members of a local church calling it a “false god" and local politicians jumping on the issue to assert that it has no place in a “Christian nation” – which, constitutionally, the US is not.

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Since then, arguments for and against the statue have surfaced frequently in an increasingly toxic atmosphere in a once-capacious state that has seen a large influx of Indian-origin residents, particularly in and around Dallas and Houston.

Indian-American community leaders maintain that the statue is not an assertion that Texas has suddenly become India, but rather that Hindu Americans are part of Texas.

"There's nothing that's un-American about it," says Dr Vijay Sreenarasimhaiah, a former temple board member, arguing that the statue's message of bringing people together reflected constitutional values.

Temple members also say the structure is fully legal and they followed all due permitting processes.

Engineers designed the structure to withstand hurricane-force winds exceeding 180 mph that the area is sometimes subjected to.

The statue was constructed by traditional Indian sthapatis, or temple sculptors, shipped to Texas in pieces and assembled on site. The project cost about $8 million and was financed through donations from Hindus in Houston and elsewhere in the US.

(The idea for the statue came from Sri Chinna Jeeyar Swami, the Indian spiritual leader who also conceived Hyderabad's Statue of Equality. He envisioned Hanuman as a “builder of bridges" and a symbol of unity, and named it the Statue of Union because Hanuman, in the Ramayana, helps reunite Rama and Sita.)

The irony is that Hanuman is hardly a recent immigrant to America. At the Mount Madonna Centre in California, the Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple grew out of the devotion of American followers of Neem Karoli Baba, venerated by a legion of celebrities in Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and Bollywood - from the late Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg to Julia Roberts and Virat Kohli.

After Baba's death in 1973, American devotees commissioned a Hanuman murti; the temple was consecrated in 2003.

In New Mexico, the Neem Karoli Baba Ashram likewise traces its Hanuman devotion to American followers from the late 1970s.

In Texas itself, the Karya Siddhi Hanuman temple in Frisco developed from a satsang group formed in 1999; its stone shrine was carved in Bengaluru and assembled by a team of 29 sculptors in 2015.

And the cultural reach of Hanuman extends far beyond Hindu immigrants. Barack Obama, hardly the image of an Indian religious traditionalist, disclosed in a 2016 interview that among the small objects he carried in his pocket as personal reminders and good-luck charms was a miniature Hanuman figurine given to him by a woman.

The National Archives confirms the existence of a Hanuman figurine in the Obama presidential collection.

The backlash, however, has migrated from theology into politics amid increasing race-baiting and xenophobia in the MAGA universe. In February this year, Carlos Turcios, a Texas conservative activist, released a social-media video of the statue, describing it as evidence that "third world aliens" were taking over Texas and America.

And last month, conservative commentator Kaylee Campbell pushed ahead with the fear-mongering with the question: "How is anyone supposed to take Texas seriously when we have a 90-foot 'monkey god' statue?"

Texas politicians themselves have sent mixed signals. Governor Greg Abbott, while not specifically commenting on the statue, has publicly courted Texas' Indian-American community, saying at a Diwali celebration, “As long as I am governor of this great state, Texas will be a land for the Indian community." But the fireworks just won't stop.