DNA

• Krishna-Avanti school says it will admit only those who visit the temple daily and abstain from non-veg, alcohol and smoking

London, Dec 4: To be a Hindu, you have to practice daily deity worship in a temple or at home, undertake weekly temple-related charity work, participate fortnightly in temple programmes, abide by Vedic scriptures and abstain from meat, fish, eggs, alcohol and smoking.

If you do not do all these, then you are not a Hindu and therefore ineligible to send your children to Britain’s first Hindu school.

The admission policy to the Krishna-Avanti school in Harrow in North London to be opened in September 2008 was outlined recently and has deeply divided the local Hindu community.

“They have made a lot of Hindus very angry as according to their definition, most of the Hindu community in Britain is not even Hindu. I don’t go to the temple every day but that doesn’t make me any less of a practising Hindu,” said Arjun Malik, spokesman for the Hindu Human Rights, who have received lots of complaints from fellow Hindus.

The Krishna-Avanti school is being built by the I-Foundation with help from £9.8 million government grant from Harrow Council. Harrow has more than 40,000 Hindus, mostly Gujaratis, living in the borough.

The mixed primary school for 210 pupils and 26 nursery children, will only be able to offer 30 places each year and as can be expected the demand for places is extremely high.

Jay Lakhani of the Hindu Council UK (HCUK) claimed that the school’s admission policy was so strict and based on the ISKCON version of Hinduism that it is not one that would be accepted by the majority of 1.5 million Hindus living in the UK.

“Because the Krishna-Avanti school was offered state funding and is being allowed to open as a ‘Hindu’ rather than an ISKCON school, that is what it should be — a truly Hindu school that reflects the wider Hindu community,” said Lakhani.

But Nitesh Gor, the director of the I Foundation rejected criticism of the admission rules emphasising that they had been approved by Harrow Council’s School Organisation Committee.

“The definition arrived at by us recognises practices which are common to all mainstream Hindu movements in the UK, including the Swaminarayan temples, ISKCON, Jainism and the other branches of Hinduism that have large congregations in Harrow,” explained Gor.

However, the HHR and the HCUK are not ready to bow down and are holding meetings to work out the best way to create a movement against the ‘discriminatory’ rules.

According to them a Hindu school should be open to all Hindus not just a narrow minority.