Russia dismisses ban on Geeta

December 31, 2011

A couple of days ago, I had a guest post by Jayendra on moves by prosecutors in the Russian city of Tomsk to ban the Bhagavad Geeta. The good news today is that the courts have now dismissed the case.

The situation with reference to religious freedom is murky in Russia with the Russian Orthodox Church in many provinces anxiously watching the activities of other religious groups to ensure that these are do not work against the interests of the Church. There is anecdotal evidence that ISCKON has quoted to indicate that this has happened in this situation, too.

The thing that galled me about the whole event was not the problems in Russia. It is the behavior that the Guardian headline indicates that shows the worst side of India's wonderful parliament. The headline is: "Bhagavad Gita trial in Russia closes Indian parliament". The opening line in the story is:

Indian politicians forced parliament to close on Monday in a protest against a Siberian trial calling for a version of a Hindu holy book to be banned.

The Hindustan Times confirms it in this story. So, the collective wisdom of the Lok Sabha with everyone across the BJP (the Hindu party!), Shiv Sena (the defenders of Hinduism) and the Congress was that the best response to the bad Russian's try to ban our beloved Bhagavad Geeta was to stop work and go home.

Too much to expect them to read Chapter 3? Too much risk that it might interfere with their important work as India's parliamentarians?

On a more cheerful note, Happy 2012 to all readers! See you next year on this blog.

Hari Om and Namaskaar until the next post

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