UNITED KINGDOM, April 8, 2008: When Attri was interviewed at the Ministry of Defense for the job of Britain’s first Hindu chaplain, he was asked what he would say if a soldier did not want to go to war. Hindu teachings, he responded, offer good guidance: “Duty is our priority. It’s our karma, and we have to face it.” Hindu teachings have armed most of the soldiers he counsels with resolve. “They know they’ve undertaken a contract to look after the boundary walls of the country.”
As Hindu chaplain to the British Army since 2005, one of Acharya Krishan Kant Attri’s most crucial tools is the Bhagavad Gita. “I use it all the time,” says the 45-year-old pandit, or Hindu priest. Attri performs army weddings, supports soldiers and their families, and acts as a liaison between Hindu troops and their commanding officers, explaining small but symbolically charged issues: why Hindu soldiers want to wear rakhi, or symbolic red strings, around their wrists, or why strict vegetarians do not want to use spoons that have touched meat at meals. He has also gone to Nepal to select chaplains for the Gurkhas, and this spring will visit troops in Afghanistan. “I want to see what the soldiers go through, to help me advise them and support the families left behind.”
Last year, Sir Ian Blair conceded to “a feeling in the Hindu community that we have not given them as much attention as other groups”. A 2006 Runnymede Trust report on Britain’s Hindus opened thus: “British Hindus form the third-largest faith-based community in Britain yet we know remarkably little about them, their needs or experiences.”