Bringing an end to a six-month-long legal battle, a Russian court on Wednesday rejected a ban on a translated version of the Bhagavad Gita, a verdict welcomed by the Indian government as a “sensible resolution of a sensitive issue”.
The court’s decision against a ban brought to an end to a keenly contested case that caused anger among believers around the world and forced New Delhi to take up the matter with Moscow. “We have won the case. The judge rejected the petition,” Sadhu Priya Das of Iskcon, Moscow, who is also chief of the newly-formed Hindu Council of Russia, told PTI.
In New Delhi, external affairs minister S.M. Krishna welcomed the ruling and thanked the Russian government for its support.
Prosecutors in the Siberian city of Tomsk had argued that the Russian translation Bhagavad Gita As It Is promotes “social discord” and hatred towards non-believers. The text is a combination of the Bhagavad Gita, one of Hinduism’s holiest scriptures, and a commentary by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, founder of Iskcon.
The prosecutors asked the court to include the book on the Russian Federal List of Extremist Materials, which bans over 1,000 texts. Iskcon members had alleged that the Russian Orthodox Chur-ch was behind the court case as it wanted to limit its activities.