Hindus in Russia
By Baleshwar Agrawal
Hindus in Russia are being subjected to persecution and discrimination by a corpus made of the Russian Orthodox Church and the State. There are over 5,000 Hindus from India and 10,000 Hindu converts from the local Russian population in Moscow. Two years ago the Mayor of Russia asked devotees to vacate their temple in exchange for a piece of land on which they could build a bigger temple.
This was followed immediately by mass protests orchestrated by the Russian Orthodox Church which did not want land given to a temple that was converting Russian Christians to a Hindu way of life.
Hindus were victimised, threatened, bullied, beaten and subject to violence. A misinformation campaign was launched against everything Hindu.
Finally last month, the Mayor of Russia cancelled the land order and took away the piece of land given for the construction of the Hindu temple. Now, the 15,000 Hindus in Moscow have no place to worship.
The consecrated deities of Radha and Krishna will have no home. Russia also has a history of passing laws that discriminate against minority faith communities.
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