An internationally acclaimed Hindu leader has called for an Ireland-wide boycott of the Hollywood movie The Love Guru because it lampoons Hinduism and Hindu concepts.Rajan Zed, who is President of the Universal Society of Hinduism, has urged Irish Hindus and other religious Irish to join him in his campaign against the movie, which stars Mike Myers and is due to open in Ireland on Friday.
Zed has lambasted the film as "pure and blatant ridiculing" of Hinduism, and criticised the Irish Film Censor's Office for giving it a 15A classification, saying it deserved the highest rating of over 18s.
"We have a duty to protect children and young persons from harm," said Zed, adding that the 15A rating would allow highly impressionable Irish children to grow-up with a distorted view of Hinduism.
Zed, who is based in Nevada, California, has launched an international campaign against the movie, urging both Hindus and people of other faiths to join in his boycott.
"This is pure and blatant ridiculing," he said. "The guru in The Love Guru instigates a bar fight, repeatedly narrates penis jokes, mocks yoga, induces elephant copulation in front of the crowd, lives in a lavish ashram staffed with scantily clad maids, and [his] whole goal in life seems to be to appear on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Today it is Hinduism, tomorrow Hollywood might attempt to denigrate another religion or denomination."
Zed, who last year became the first Hindu to open a sitting of the US senate with a Hindu prayer, believes that his campaign is already working in the US, where The Love Guru had disappointing box office takings in its opening weekend.
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