Plea for vegetarian food

I WOULD like to highlight a very important issue that is silently happening in almost all of the Education Ministry’s matriculation colleges. I am a strict vegetarian who studied in one of these matriculation colleges five years ago.

I am vegetarian due to religious reasons. At the college, those of us who were vegetarians were told that we could not order our food from outside the college. The student affairs officer denied our formally-written request to order vegetarian food from outside and told us to our face that we could either “adjust” to the food in the college or fill up the form to leave and quit matriculation for good. We were hundreds of kilometres away from home and this was what the officer said to us. We felt dejected.

We asked for permission to order food from outside the college because the cafeteria did not prepare any vegetarian food at all. When we asked the cooks to prepare a vegetarian meal, we often found fish scales and bones and pieces of egg in it and we could tell by the smell that it was cooked with non-vegetarian seasonings.

The cooks prepared beef as well, and as a strict Hindu vegetarian, I was devastated because eating the meat is against my religion.

I felt so disrespected and cried a lot, but there was nothing I could do. What if it was a Muslim student in my place? Would the powers that be allow the situation to go on?

We went ahead and privately ordered food from outside. Thank goodness some of the security guards were understanding enough about our grave situation and did not report the matter to the college officials. However, we were reported a number of times, and on such occasions, we lived on bread and instant noodles for a few days before secretly ordering vegetarian food again. I remember eating instant noodles and buns during Hindu New Year. It was the worst experience in my life ever.

I thought things would change and the college officials would be more understanding about a religious obligation and dietary habits, but no. When my sister entered matriculation in a different college two years later, she faced the same problem. Now, my cousin is in the same plight in another matriculation college. He is a strict vegetarian and a hungry teenager, so imagine subjecting him to starvation. When the cafeteria workers refused to give him a pure vegetarian dish, he was forced to eat the food available, pushing aside the pieces of meat in it.

He said that during Navaratri, a 10-day prayer festival where a lot of devout non-vegetarian Hindus would be vegetarians for the duration, about 50 students apparently requested the college officials to allow them to cater food from outside, but their request was rejected. The officials said that if they allowed the students to order food from outside, the cafeteria operators would lose their profit. Is earning profit more important than allowing these poor students to observe their religious beliefs?

Religion is a personal issue. Article 11 of our Federal Constitution provides that every person has the right to profess and to practise his or her religion. Aren’t we a nation that takes pride in having a multiracial and multireligious society?

The college officials would sometimes say they banned catered vegetarian food because they want to avoid food poisoning. I can confidently say that none of us ever had food poisoning from secretly eating the catered food. To be honest, the cafeteria food was much less hygienic. There were classmates who had food poisoning from eating cafeteria food but not once did my friends and I get an upset stomach from consuming our catered vegetarian meals.

I am not a racist. All I expect is for the officials to understand our diet. The needs of strict vegetarians are similar to Muslims for halal food.

Why am I voicing this issue after five years? It’s because I believed the system would change. I hoped the officials would understand and allow vegetarians to bring food from the outside.

Being a vegetarian is not like being a picky eater. It’s about practising my religion and fulfilling my ethical obligations. Some of my Buddhist peers have faced this problem, too.

Unfortunately, nothing has changed. Vegetarians continue to suffer but keep mum because they are at the “mercy” of the college officials. Fear keeps them silent.

All I truly hope for and expect from the government and my non-vegetarian friends is to understand our problem. I believe that many kind and rational Malaysians would understand our plight. It is very serious.

Let’s accept the facts; the college canteen or cafeteria cannot provide vegetarian food because they do not understand vegetarianism. Only an Indian, Buddhist or a vegetarian in general would understand what preparing food in a vegetarian manner is. They would almost never contaminate vegetarian food with non-vegetarian ingredients.

So, the only solution is to allow vegetarians to order their food from outside. I beg the authorities to look into this matter.

EX-MATRICULATION VEGETARIAN STUDENT Petaling Jaya