LONDON, ENGLAND, December 19, 2005: HPI note: The Hindu Council UK sends the following press release. The problem this new program solves is that all priests of all religions need to pass a high level English competency exam to get a visa to England. Unfortunately, many Hindu priests, while experts in Sanskrit as well as at least one other Indian language, do not meet such a standard of English. Already at least one temple had lost its priest because of this provision, and more were sure to follow until this announcement creating a “Religious Workers” visa category without the English requirement. This is a great accomplishment on the part of the Hindu Council, and HPI congratulates the Council as well as the government of UK for accommodating the special needs of the Hindu community.
“Minister, Thank you very much!” was the sentiment expressed by Anil Bhanot, the General Secretary of Hindu Council UK, to the Immigration Minister, Tony McNulty MP, after the Minister explained his review and proposals on the Ministers of Religion Legislation.
Tony McNulty explained a number of issues in the overall package, which he said will also tie in with the point based system (this press release does not explain what the “point based system” is) to come into force in about 18 months time.
For settlement in the UK, the Ministers will still have to demonstrate a citizenship test but the period will be extended from 2 years to 4 years as in normal cases. The Minister said that he saw no reason why a shorter term should apply to Ministers of Religion. However, the English test requirement will be raised from an IELTS level 4 to level 6. Significantly, however, the Minister has created another category, Religious Workers, who will not be required to pass any such test. Religious workers would fall under a non-pastoral, a non-preaching role, and he said that the Hindu Priests, namely, Bhandaries (Cooks), Puraanies (Scriptures) and Pujaaries (ceremonies) will fall under this category while the Hindu Sadhus and Swamis who do preach will fall under the former Ministers of Religion category.
The new legislation is set to become law on the 9th January 2006 and then the Religious workers will need to be accredited by approved bodies, like the Hindu Council of UK, from the host community. However for the long term these accreditation procedures will need to be consulted upon for each community separately, to tie in with the point based system.
Pujaaries look after the Hindu Gods–Deities who once consecrated in a shrine are no longer idols but are alive, with spirituality infused–need to have an extremely high level of knowledge of Sanskrit scriptures and mantras. It is a technical job performing rituals and ceremonies in Sanskrit only. Our temples were now in a state where the senior Sanskrit scholarly type priests were being replaced with the junior English versed priests who lacked knowledge and experience and invariably they would read from the scriptures as opposed to the scholarly priests who knew each of the thousands of mantras by heart, thus maintaining the confidence in the very complex and technical Hindu worship.
Hindu Council UK is grateful to the Government for listening and is particularly thankful to Tony McNulty for helping to keep the Hindu spirituality alive in the UK by creating a separate category that fits the Hindu Pujaaries.