Bhagavad Gita faces ban in Russia

Moscow: The Bhagavad Gita, one of the holy scriptures of Hindus, is facing a legal ban across Russia. A court in Siberia's Tomsk city is set to deliver its final verdict tomorrow in a case filed by state prosecutors.

The final pronouncement in the case will come two days after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's official visit to Russia.

The case, which has been under way in Tomsk court since June, seeks a 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 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 movement here have appealed to Singh and his government to intervene diplomatically to resolve the issue in favour of the scripture, an important part of Indian epic Mahabharata.

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 should be compromised.

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 on October 25.

But Hindu groups in Russia 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 practise their religious beliefs be upheld.