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TRINIDAD, October 23, 2004: Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha Secretary General Satnarayan Maharaj has accused the Ministry of Education of attempting to convert non-Christian pupils through a national school singing competition. The preliminaries of the Caroni Education Division singing competition began yesterday at several venues in Central Trinidad. It is being sponsored by the Royal Bank of Trinidad and Tobago. Bank official said they had no part to do in choosing the songs to be sung. Maharaj said one week before the competition, a SDMS Hindu school principal alerted him to the words in one of the songs listed for the competition. He said the SDMS Board of Education objected to one of the lines was said “…So give your heart to Jesus…” and the fact that it was a “Christian” song. Maharaj said after his objections, the lyrics were altered to “So give your love at Christmas…” which were still not acceptable. He said: “It is still a Christian song in a national song competition.” He added: “So we instructed our schools not to participate. They are using the competition to convert the children. This should be a secular event, why couldn’t they create a suitable song to all? “Why create a Christmas song for the competition? If the Ministry of Education wanted to have a competition on religions, why did they not include a religious song from all groups, why pick on a Christian song?” Maharaj said Hindu schools had previously taken part in the competition, “but this is the first time we have a problem with the lyrics.”

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