Hindus have welcomed the rejection by Tomsk regional court in Siberia (Russia) of proposed move to ban ancient scripture Bhagavad Gita (Song of the Lord).
Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, thanked the honorable Court welcoming its decision of reaffirming the December lower court ruling and pointed out that it did the right and sensible thing befitting a democratic, open-minded and pluralistic society.
Zed, who is the President of Universal Society of Hinduism, said that Bhagavad Gita was one of the holiest scriptures of Hinduism and banning it would have deeply hurt the devotees. He thanked the efforts of Hindus and other friends worldwide who supported the ban rejection.
Rajan Zed further said that Hinduism was the oldest and third largest religion of the world with about one billion adherents and rich philosophical thought and it should not be taken lightly. No faith, larger or smaller, should be maltreated.
Zed argued that attempt at banning Bhagavad Gita was apparently an attack on religious freedom and belittling of the entire community.
Rajan Zed stressed that this philosophical and intensely spiritual poem, often considered the epitome of Hinduism, was highly revered by Hindus. Besides being the cornerstone of Hindu faith, Bhagavad Gita was also one of the masterpieces of Sanskrit poetry and a world treasure and had been commented by hundreds of authors and translated into all major languages of the world.
It was a dialogue between Lord Krishna and Arjuna, just before the beginning of the great Mahabharata war, in which Lord Krishna gave spiritual enlightenment to the warrior Arjuna, who realized that the true battle was for his own soul. Its 700 verses in 18 chapters considered the nature of action, the religious and social duty, the human relationship to God, the means of liberation, and the nature of sacrifice, etc., Zed added.
Established in 1604, Tomsk, one of the oldest towns in Siberia, is a major center for Russia’s IT industry and houses Siberia’s oldest university Tomsk State University. Nikolay Nikolaychuk is reportedly the acting Mayor.
New Delhi, March 21 : Hindus
in Russia Wednesday won a
major legal battle when a court in the Siberian city of Tomsk threw out a case filed by the state
prosecutors seeking a ban on a Russian translation of a commentary on the
Bhagavad Gita.
The higher court in Tomsk,
before which the state prosecutors had filed an appeal, upheld a lower court
verdict delivered in December last year dismissing the case.
"We have won the case. The court has dismissed the state prosecutors'
appeal," an elated Sadhu Priya Das, a devotee of the ISKCON (International
Society for Krishna Consciousness) in Russia
told IANS over phone from Tomsk.
The case relates to Tomsk
state prosecutor's filing a petition in June 2011 seeking a ban on a Russian
translation of "Bhagwad Gita As It Is" written by A.C. Bhaktived
Swami Prabhupada, founder of ISKCON, claiming that it was "extremist"
in nature and spread "social discord".
"The appeal case was dismissed," ISKCON international chief Bhakti
Vijnana Goswami, who is on a worldwide tour, told IANS in an e-mail reaction to
the verdict.
Commenting on the Tomsk higher court's decision,
India's Ambassador to Russia
Ajai Malhotra said: "I welcome the verdict of the district court in Tomsk today (Wednesday),
which has dismissed the appeal petition in the Bhagavad Gita case."
"It is good that the decision of the lower court in this matter has been
reaffirmed. I trust that this issue is now conclusively behind us,"
Malhotra said.
Anxiety had gripped the 50,000-odd ISKCON followers in Russia after
the state prosecutors appealed in February this year against the Dec 27 verdict
that went against their petition to ban the Russian translation of the book by
the ISKCON founder.
The case triggered an uproar in India, even rocking parliament for two days,
with MPs cutting across party lines asking the government to use its diplomacy
skills to get the issue resolved, so that the religious rights of Hindus in
Russia is protected.
India drummed up support for
the Hindus in Russia
through meetings between Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna and
Russian Ambassador Alexander Kadakin, who called the case a work of some
"madmen".