MOSCOW | TIMES OF INDIA | IANS | Dec 17, 2011, 12.39PM IST: Bhagavad Gita, one of the holiest Hindu scriptures, is facing a legal ban and the prospect of being branded as “an extremist” literature across Russia. A court in Siberia’s Tomsk city is set to deliver its final verdict Monday in a case filed by state prosecutors.
The final pronouncement in the case will come two days after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during his Dec 15-17 official visit for a bilateral summit with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev consolidated bilateral trade and strategic ties and personal friendship.
The case, which has been going on in Tomsk court since June, seeks ban on a Russian translation of “Bhagavad Gita As It Is” written by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).
It also wants the Hindu religious text banned in Russia and declared as a literature spreading “social discord”, its distribution on Russian soil rendered illegal.
In view of the case, Indians settled in Moscow, numbering about 15,000, and followers of the ISKCON religious movement here have appealed to Manmohan Singh and his government to intervene diplomatically to resolve the issue in favour of the scripture, an important part of Indian epic Mahabharata written by sage Ved Vyas.
The ISKCON followers in Russia have also written a letter to the Prime Minister’s Office in New Delhi, calling for immediate intervention, lest the religious freedom of Hindus living here be compromised.
“The case is coming up for a final verdict on Monday in Tomsk court. We want all efforts from the Indian government to protect the religious rights of Hindus in Russia,” Sadhu Priya Das of ISKCON and a devotee of a 40-year-old Krishna temple in central Moscow, told IANS.
The court, which took up the case filed by the state prosecutors, had referred the book to the Tomsk State University for “an expert” examination Oct 25.
But Hindu groups in Russia, particularly followers of ISKCON, say the university was not qualified as it lacked Indologists who study the history and cultures, languages, and literature of the Indian subcontinent.
The Hindus pleaded with the court that the case was inspired by religious bias and intolerance from a “majority religious group in Russia”, and have sought that their rights to practice their religious beliefs be upheld.
The prosecutor’s case also seeks to ban the preachings of Prabhupada and ISKCON’s religious beliefs, claiming these were “extremist” in nature and preached “hatred” of other religious beliefs.
“They have not just tried to get the Bhagavad Gita banned, but also brand our religious beliefs and preachings as extremist,” Das said.
The ISKCON devotees have taken up the matter with the Indian embassy in Moscow too for an early diplomatic intervention before things get worse and the court passes an adverse verdict banning the Bhagavad Gita and Krishna consciousness teachings.
In the Nov 1 letter addressed to Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister Pulok Chatterji, ISKCON’s New Delhi branch Governing Body Commissioner Gopal Krishna Goswami, said the prosecutor’s affidavit claims Lord Krishna “is evil and not conforming to Christian religious view”.
Goswami also urged Manmohan Singh to accord priority to the matter during his Moscow stay and take it up with the Russian authorities.
Indian diplomatic corps officials at the embassy here, who were unwilling to be named, told IANS that they have been following up the case since the time it was brought to their notice earlier this year.
They had also taken up the matter at the appropriate levels in the Russian government to get the case either withdrawn or get the defence to fight the case to obtain a favourable verdict.
Officials at the Indian Prime Minister’s Office, who were part of the Indian delegation accompanying Manmohan Singh, confirmed to IANS the case and the letter they received from ISKCON in this regard.
“This matter is receiving the highest attention and the Indian embassy officials in Moscow have been instructed to follow up the case with the Russian authorities,” they said.
source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/Bhagavad-Gita-faces-extremist-branding-ban-in-Russia/articleshow/11143014.cms
More on Gita trial:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagavad_Gita_trial_in_Russia
Petition in support of Bhagavad Gita As It Is in Russia:
http://www.petitions24.com/gita
The new ‘expert testimony’ produced several days ago is ‘highly negative’, according to HH Bhakti Vijnana Goswami. The trial is sheduled to resume on December 19th and 20th. So let’s see the outcome…
UPDATE on Gita trial in Tomsk.
The defendant side has lodged a motion to engage the regional Ombudsperson, and the prayer was satisfied. The court hearings are postponed until December 28th so that the Ombudsperson can study the case and the new expert testimony.
The defendant lawyers say it’s a kind of little victory, since the Ombudsperson is empowered to halt any human rights violation during the court case.
It may be recalled in this connection that Tomsk Ombudsperson Nelly Krechetova intervened on behalf of Hare Krishna devotees in October 2011. She called the court case “absurd” and remarked that “this book is considered to be holy by almost a billion of people around the world, and it has been distributed in Russia for 20 years”. She pointed out that there has been not a single proved case of extremism connected with the book’s distribution” and that “the possible ban of the book will violate constitutional rights of people for freedom of thought, conscience and religion, since ISKCON is an officially registered society”. The court case has drawn attention of Russia’s Ombudsperson Vladimir Lukin who ordered his representative to take part in the case on the defendant side.
P.S. India’s Parliament ruckus over Bhagvad Gita facing ban in Russia:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Parliament-ruckus-over-Bhagvad-Gita-facing-ban-in-Russia/articleshow/11166214.cms