Wellington - Hindu youths living in New Zealand have criticised a new computer game which uses a Hindu god as the main character.
In the PlayStation 2 title, Hanuman: Boy Warrior, players control Lord Hanuman from his beginnings as a powerless boy and help him regain power over the course of the game. Hindus say the game is offensive, and belittling of a deity many believers revere and worship.
The comments come before the start of a Hindu youth conference in Auckland. Lord Hanuman is described as being the son of a wind god who has incredible strength and the ability to fly. His most famous feat, as described in Hindu scripture, was leading a monkey army to fight the demon king Ravana.
“It makes me very angry when I see my friends play a game where they can control the god's every movement with a joystick,'' said Terry Moorthy, 19, who moved to New Zealand from Kerala, India, last year. “I feel like my faith is being insulted, but I don't know what my rights are in New Zealand.''
Terry said Hanuman was a god many Hindus turned to for “hopeless cases'' because he “could help a person overcome anything''. The comments mirror those made by the Universal Society of Hinduism, which complained to game publishers Sony. The company said it would review the game.
Hindu spiritual leader Swami Vigyananand, from India, who is in Aukland for the conference, said Hinduism may be the oldest and the third largest religion in the world with over a billion followers, but it still faced a lot of “ignorance and bias'' in Western societies.
According to the NZ Census, 64,392 people claimed to be Hindus in 2006 - a 61.8 percent jump from the previous Census in 2001.
“I don't think people will turn Jesus or Allah into a computer game character. Young people may be playing the game out of ignorance, but I don't think that is the case for the older people who designed the game,'' Swami Vigyananand said.
- The New Zealand Herald