Performing Identities: State-ISKCON Interactions in Singapore

Abstract

This chapter discusses the growth and expansion of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), popularly referred to as the “Hare Krishnas,” within the context of the socio-political situation in Singapore. It will focus on the interactions between the State and ISKCON and the strategies undertaken by the latter to establish its presence in Singapore. The choice of Singapore serves as a suitable exemplar of a dynamic cosmopolitan city-state composed of people from a variety of religious orientations and a democratic authoritarian government. Moreover, the availability of a range of empirical studies on religiosity in Singapore and the benefit of a rich database of policies of a four-decade rule of a single political party renders the Singapore State an ideal case study. ISKCON, which until the late 1980s was widely accepted as a world-rejecting new religious movement (NRM) both in Western and Asian societies, serves as a good example of a classic NRM that emerged during the counterculture period in the 1960s and has undergone various forms of internal and external transformations in its struggle for survival and expansion. The intersection of a new authoritarian state exercising a large measure of control over the lives of its citizens who are engaged in meeting the state’s objective of material prosperity and modernization with that of a new but traditional religious movement with monastic inclinations and whose proselytizing methods are deliberately of high public visibility promises to be a dramatic encounter. According to Rosalind Hackett, the right to express and practice one’s religion is subject to restrictions that can be imposed by the state in the interests of public order, security, and decency. Specifically the recognition of the right to proselytize in any particular context is a good indicator of respect for the range of rights related to freedom of religion and belief. It is often the minority or sectarian groups like ISKCON that are the litmus test, and therefore its measure of freedom to proselytize in Singapore will be discussed here.