My dear brothers and sisters of Singapore and humanity in general,
We request your urgent attention!
Madana Mohan Das (a full-time Hindu Priest, IC No.: S9029832A, serving his compulsory National Service as a Private at Jurong Camp 1), is a Hindu Brahmin priest and as a priest, he has to follow strict dietary principles of our faith by not eating meat, fish, eggs, onion, garlic and mushrooms. We are not allowed any intoxication including coffee and tea. Our priests only eat food cooked as prayer offerings, technically called Prasadam.
When he was enlisted into Basic Military Training (BMT), he was allowed to have his food brought in from the temple. Upon completion of his BMT, he was posted as a driver. The commanding officer then made a request for him to be posted as a clerk so that he could be allowed to have his food brought from the temple and perform his national service without compromising his faith.
However we were told that this request was rejected and he has been disallowed to have his meals to be brought to him from the temple. We have sent a letter dated 15 May 2009 to Mindef about this situation but they flatly denied providing any assistance. He is allowed to book out of the camp every Tuesday and Thursday evening and the weekends. Only then has he the chance to eat a proper meal at the temple whereas the rest of the days, he is sustaining on dry ration brought from the temple on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
In the meantime, his superiors forced him to eat the food at his camp and have asked him to cut off his Sikha, the tuft of hair kept by Hindu priests. They charged him twice; once for food and once for the sikha. He chose to go for court marshal. He was told that the trial would be in two weeks’ time. While he was waiting for his trial, they suddenly charged him again for the same “offence” and took him on the 20th of July, 2009, to the Detention Barracks (DB), the army jail for an indefinite period of rigorous punishment. But Madana Mohan Das is going on a hunger strike until death, inside the jail as he would not eat anything except Krishna Prasadam (sanctified food), being a full-time temple priest all his life.
Is this justice? In the national service, the Muslims are given provision to have Halal food. The Sikhs are allowed to keep their long hair covered with a turban. Why then can't a Hindu priest be given facility to practice his religion peacefully? Is it because we are a minority that we can be played around with? Is this what our country's much-advertised multi-racial and multi-religious harmony stands for? We don't think so. But we are confused by this incident.
The victim is not against serving his national service, nor are we. We would like to emphasize that we fully support Madana Mohan Das serving his national service. But we are very much disturbed by the insensitivity shown by his superiors towards his religious faith.
Fervent appeals to different ministers of influential disposition were to no avail. So we are appealing to you people for support in a bid to uphold justice and basic human rights.
Therefore, we are here on a campaign to let everybody know about the injustice and religious intolerance shown to an 18-year old Hindu priest. We think that the citizens of Singapore in general, regardless of race, religion, caste, creed and color, agree that everyone has the right to practice his/her religion freely. We humbly request you to spread this word around for the sake of upholding justice. Please send this email to as many people as possible.
Yours sincerely
The devotees at
Sri Krishna Mandir
No.9, Geylang Lorong 29, #03-02
(S) 388065
Tel: 62502280
Email: sri.krishna.mandir@gmail.com
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