19 Dec 2011 - QA 11

Q: There is a wrong comment regarding Bhagavad Gita in the Siberian court of Russia. So, please guide us regarding that.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: It is unfortunate that there is a move to ban Bhagavad Gita in Russia. It is not correct!
Because Arjuna has been asked to fight the war against injustice by Lord Krishna, some people are trying to ban it as a book which would inspire terrorism.
There has not been a single incident of someone becoming a terrorist after having read Srimad Bhagavad Gita in the history of five thousand years.
Mahatma Gandhi was a great fan of Bhagavad Gita and he wrote one of the many commentaries on Bhagavad Gita. There may be around a thousand commentaries on Bhagavad Gita.
So, if you take some phrase or paragraphs from here and there which says, ‘yes, fight the war, fight against injustice’, and call it a terrorist scripture, then it is not right. Now, you can’t call Bible a terrorist scripture.
There are similar verses are in Quran which says, if there is an unbeliever, chop off all his fingers. There are nearly twenty five verses in Quran which talks about severe punishment to non-believers. So you cannot label these ancient scriptures as terrorist scriptures and try to ban them.

It is the attitude of people; intolerance towards others that is terrorism.
Intolerance is the seed of terrorism, whatever religion it is in. If there is intolerance in people, they are going to sprout and become terrorists of the future. We must check the intolerance in people. Banning scriptures is not going to make anything better in the world.
In fact millions of people have been inspired by Bhagavad Gita, including Einstein, the greatest scientist of this century. He said, ‘when I read the Bhagavad Gita my whole life changed.’ So it will be a loss for the population of Russia if such a ban is implemented in the country.
I am sure the Government of India will take a strong stance. Not just 1.2 billion people, but a big population of non-Hindus also admire the Bhagavad Gita. When that is the case, such steps should not be taken by the government agencies of a country which has had a long-standing good relationship with India.