Petition Seeking Ban on Gita Dismissed

Moscow: A Russian court on Wednesday dismissed a petition seeking a ban on a translated version of Bhagavad Gita for being "extremist", bringing cheers to followers across the world months after the issue threatened to strain Moscow's strategic ties with India. "The court in the Siberian city of Tomsk has dismissed the plea," Sadhu Priya Das of Moscow ISKCON told PTI soon after the verdict was announced. State prosecutors in the Siberian city of Tomsk had filed an appeal against a lower court's dismissal of their original plea seeking a ban on "Bhagavad Gita As It Is", written by A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). They had claimed that the text was "extremist" literature full of hatred and insult to non-believers which promoted social discord. The higher court in Tomsk "kept the verdict of the lower court intact," a joyful Das said. As the judge dismissed the plea, the followers in the packed courtroom burst into applause, he said. "We are grateful to the Russian judicial system," Das said. In a statement, the Tomsk district court said after today's verdict that it had decided "to leave unchanged" a lower court's December 28 ruling that the book did not contain extremist material. Indian Ambassador to Russia, Ajai Malhotra, welcomed the decision of the court. "I welcome the verdict of the Honourable District Court in Tomsk today, which has dismissed the appeal petition in the Bhagavad Gita case," Malhotra told PTI in a statement. "It is good that the decision of the lower trial court in this matter has been reaffirmed. I trust that this issue is now conclusively behind us," Malhotra said. After the verdict, Alexander Shakhov, ISKCON's court representative, was quoted as saying by Vesti news channel: "This is a completely just, reasonable and -- most importantly -- legitimate decision." Brajendra Nandan Das, Director ISKCON media communication in India, expressed happiness over the verdict. "We have won. The petition seeking a ban on the book has been dismissed," he told PTI. The case had drawn a flurry of criticism from Hindus across the world. When the petition was dismissed by the lower court in Tomsk in December last year, India had welcomed the verdict as a "sensible resolution of a sensitive issue". The original petition seeking a ban on the translated version of the holy scripture was filed in June 2011 and the trial prompted sharp reactions from across the world. External Affairs Minister SM Krishna had asked the Russian government to help resolve the issue quickly. Bhagavad Gita was first published in Russia in 1788 and since then it has been republished many times in various translations. Last month, participants at conference on Bhagavad Gita had suggested creation of an independent board of scholars to evaluate various texts for signs of extremism. "The conference has indicated the permanent historical acknowledgment of Bhagavd Gita, which carries on the commentatorial tradition of the religious authority, and has shown its spiritual influence on the cultural development not only in India, but also in other countries," a resolution adopted at the meet had said. The participants also firmly believed that the notion of extremism cannot be applied to such a religious text as Bhagavad Gita as It Is. The scholars had also expressed "deep satisfaction in regards to Tomsk court's decision to reject the prosecutors' plea for recognising the Bhagavad Gita As It Is as extremist literature." They had also expressed their concern with the "low level" of the general culture of officers of the law enforcement agencies and the state authorities. "We would like to draw the government's and society's attention to the urgent problem of the enforcement practice of the Federal Statute 'On counteraction against extremism activity', which permits nowadays such abuse towards religious organisations", the resolution, which was also submitted to the Russian Foreign Ministry and the Indian embassy in Moscow, had said.