My story doesn’t start with the pandemonium in parliament over the Bhagwad Gita, but seven weeks before that.

In the third week of October, I received a call from my friend in Russia Bhakti Vigyana Goswami. Goswami who heads Iskcon in Russia is known to me since my days in India TV, when Moscow civic authorities razed his Krishna temple to the ground citing some strange arguments. To its credit, my then organisation played the footage of that video to chilling effect and it was hard to remain unmoved after watching it. SMSes poured in in the thousands. Hema Malini lent her voice in support. And our ratings went up.

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But those weren’t the days of the social media and the issue got buried after a few days though not before prime minister Manmohan Singh on a visit to Russia at that time reportedly made a mention of this to Vladimir Putin.

Truth being stranger than fiction, I found myself listening in horror to Goswami’s narrative after so much water had flown in the Yamuna and the Moskva. That this time not just a Krishna Temple, but the source of his entire philosophy, the Bhagwad Gita, is facing a ban in a kangaroo court. Since there was no television channel to back us, nor even video footage which channels demand before affording a minute’s coverage, we decided to do what my law firm and advocacy firms know best. We followed the rule book and invoked prime minister Manmohan Singh.

To ensure this didn’t get lost in a mountain of paper, we made a petition to the PM’s highly-regarded principal secretary Pulok Chatterji and had it signed by Gopal Krishna Goswami, a top functionary of Iskcon. The letter, which is attached (see below), explained the issue in brief and also provided detailed annexes of the injustice being done to the sacred text. To make things even simpler for Chatterji, who we realised was really busy, an expansive translation of the court proceedings (attached) was provided too. The entire docket running into a few dozen pages was delivered at PMO ,as also to the principal secretary’s email ID. With a touch of paranoia, the docket was also hand delivered at Chatterji’s home address, including by a comical error to the residence occupied by TKA Nair, the previous incumbent now advisor to PM.

A similar protocol was endeavoured for four key people on cc., ie, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma, external affairs minister SM Krishna, and national security advisor Shiv Shankar Menon. It was hoped that diligent follow-up will ensure that at least one of these people will understand that doing business with Russia will be difficult once India’s social media stream discovers how a state prosecutor is leading the charge against the Bhagvad Gita.

But until a newswire got hold of the story while accompanying the PM on his trip to Russia, not one of these notables batted an eyelid. The only one who claimed he’ll do something was Ajai Malhotra, India’s envoy to Moscow. One of his boys, with one eye on the prime minister’s trip to Russia, summoned Goswami and mentioned that they have advice from 10 Janpath (not PMO, by the way) to do something.``But don’t do anything while we mull over what to do!’’ the interlocutor told Goswami.

So, we waited and waited in hope, while Anand Sharma made yet another pilgrimage to Moscow in November and the top brass in the prime minister’s establishment got busy chasing sexier stuff like warships and fighter aircraft.

I realise Sharma’s predicament or Pulok’s or even Dr Singh’s. I realise a book isn’t worth the weight of deals and contracts. But isn’t it Krishna who told us to look beyond material things?…Here’s what he meant.

I wonder what Obama or the King of Saudi Arabia would do in a visit if an Indian court, by no means an agent of the state like its Russian counterparts are, had cooked the goose for banning their holy book. Do you?