The Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha has writ­ten to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, re­quest­ing the re­open­ing of rivers and nat­ur­al wa­ter­cours­es, so the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty can re­sume sev­er­al of its re­li­gious cer­e­monies.

The cor­re­spon­dence, signed by Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al (Ag.) Vi­jay Ma­haraj and which has been shared in the me­dia, re­minds both Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials that the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty has been com­pli­ant with the safe­ty pro­to­cols ef­fect­ed for the pan­dem­ic.

The re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tion is ask­ing that spe­cial con­sid­er­a­tion be giv­en to one Hin­du cer­e­mo­ny in par­tic­u­lar, which is con­nect­ed to fu­ner­al rites.

The fol­low­ing is the full text of the let­ter sent by the Ma­ha Sab­ha…

Dear Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter and Min­is­ter Deyals­ingh,

As the coun­try inch­es to­wards a state of cau­tious nor­mal­cy, the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha notes that beach­es have now been con­di­tion­al­ly re­opened for pub­lic use.

When beach­es and rivers were closed, sev­er­al of the re­li­gious cer­e­monies of the Hin­dus had to be cur­tailed and/or mod­i­fied.  For ex­am­ple, the rit­u­als of the ‘das­gaath’ (shav­ing cer­e­mo­ny that takes place on the tenth day af­ter cre­ma­tion), is usu­al­ly per­formed at a riv­er, but had to be mod­i­fied to com­ply with the pub­lic health pro­to­cols of the pan­dem­ic.  The Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha and the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty will­ing­ly abid­ed with this re­stric­tion and sought to find an al­ter­na­tive means of per­form­ing this cer­e­mo­ny.

The Pan­dits’ Parishad of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha did rec­om­mend a sub­sti­tute that Hin­dus could fol­low in the in­ter­im, giv­en the re­strict­ed ac­cess to rivers.  The Ma­ha Sab­ha des­ig­nat­ed cer­tain tem­ples on whose com­pounds the das­gaath cer­e­monies could be per­formed.  This rec­om­men­da­tion was made with the un­der­stand­ing that it was a tem­po­rary mea­sure un­til we had ac­cess to rivers once again.

To­day, the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha wish­es to ask that you con­sid­er open­ing up the rivers for pub­lic use, even with sim­i­lar re­stric­tions as beach­es.

The das­gaath cer­e­mo­ny is a very som­bre one, and does not in­volve the use of any al­co­hol, nor does it pro­mote a par­ty at­mos­phere.  The cer­e­mo­ny in­cludes a small num­ber of per­sons and the time re­quired for its com­ple­tion is usu­al­ly un­der four hours.  In oth­er words, if ac­cess is grant­ed to the rivers for the per­for­mance of this cer­e­mo­ny, there is rea­son­ably lit­tle to no risk that it would be a spread­er event for the COVID-19 virus.

We are aware that as we go for­ward as a na­tion, there is the in­evitable need to bal­ance the nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions against the COVID-19 virus with the re­spon­si­ble prac­tice of re­li­gious rites, cus­toms and every­day liv­ing.  We feel cer­tain that if our re­quest is grant­ed, it will in no way up­set this bal­ance, and the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty will have a chance once again to re­vert to our re­li­gious tra­di­tions, which have be­come an in­te­gral part of our every­day lives.

Yours in Dhar­ma,

Vi­jay Ma­haraj
Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al (Ag.)