Суд над Бхагавад-гитой / Attempt to ban Bhagavad-gita

The Gita and the Manifesto

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-gita-and-the-manifesto/891021/

The Bhagavad Gita has always commanded respect — Sir Edwin Arnold translated it to English and Mahatma Gandhi was irresistibly drawn to it. Warren Hastings, governor-general, famously said that the British empire might or might not be there, but the message of the Gita would endure. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the secret Manhattan Project, which researched on and produced the first atom bomb, was found reading the Gita when the first atomic device was tested in 1945. He quoted the words of Krishna, that if the radiance of a thousand suns burst forth in the sky, it would be like His light. Professor Oppenheimer said that such energy would be obtained from the splitting of the atom. More recently, even E. Sreedharan of the Delhi Metro described Gita as a scripture that calls for action and said a copy was given to every worker in the Metro Railway for discharging their duties well.

The members of both Houses of Parliament are outraged at the possibility that a translation of the Gita would be banned by a court in Tomsk in Siberia. When a member of Rajya Sabha raised the issue during Zero Hour, the deputy chairman, K. Rahman Khan, said the entire House associated itself with the concerns expressed by the member. Another MP wanted the Russian authorities sensitised about the sacredness of the Gita and the reverence it commanded not only from Hindus but also from those practising other faiths.



However, this is not the first time that the Gita is facing a ban in a foreign country. It was banned in Turkey in 1975. When K.R. Narayanan, who later became the president of India, was appointed as the ambassador to Turkey that year, many people apprised him of the ban on the Gita and urged him to take necessary steps to lift it.