Ramdev magazine in trouble for calling Buddhists ‘cowards’

“A PIL has been filed in the Allahabad High Court. It will come up before a division bench comprising Justices Ashok Bhushan and Pankaj Mittal on July 1. The aggrieved party has prayed in the PIL that they are anguished at the unpalatable comments and the same should be removed. They have also prayed for stopping the publication of the magazine until the case is finally decided. A complaint in the lower court seeking registration of a criminal case against the publishers of the magazine is also under way,” said R K Vaishya,the lawyer for the aggrieved party,comprising members of Kushwaha and Buddhist communities.

G S Shakya,managing director of Bauddh Commune International,one of the aggrieved parties,said the article talked about Buddhist monks being “cowards” because they followed the principle of “Ahinsa’’ (non-violence).

The article also says that the rulers of the Mauryan empire after Ashoka were also “coward”,“corrupt” and “ghor vilasi’’(used to living pompous lives),he said,adding that all these comments were highly objectionable. “Does he want to say that anybody following non-violence is coward?” asked Shakya.

The article in question,written by one Radhey Shyam Shukla and published in the May edition,seeks to compare Baba Ramdev with Pushyamitra Sung,a disciple of Maharishi Patanjali,who purportedly killed the inept emperor Vrihadratha at his guru’s instance.

The article uses objectionable comments for Vrihadratha,a descendant of Ashoka the Great,and also says that the Buddhist monks did not hesitate in inviting foreigners for their own greed.

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