Pretty little Tomsk,once almost wiped off the map,rises to adjourn the Indian Parliament
Written by The Indian Express
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Mikhail Bakunin,the father of collectivist anarchism and arguably the worlds greatest theoretical anarchist,became the most famous resident of Tomsk when Czar Alexander II did him the mercy of sending him to western Siberia on permanent exile. A Hegel-obsessed rationalist,what would Bakunin have made of the proceedings in a Tomsk court on the demand to ban the Bhagavad Gita,against what is an overwhelmingly Russian Orthodox backdrop? Furthermore,what would the great anarchist have made of the power of tiny Tomsk over parliamentary process in the distant Indian capital of New Delhi? We dont know. And who cares about Bakunin 20 years after the Soviet sunset! But he did overturn aphoristic Voltaire: If God indeed existed,it would be necessary to abolish him.
That is not to engage in a grand theological debate,nor in one about the existence of God. Not only was Lok Sabha thrown into a Tomsk-triggered turmoil,but the Indian government found itself taking the matter up at a diplomatic level,in an attempt to convince its Russian counterpart about the significance of the Gita for Indian civilisation and culture and perhaps the significance of Indian civilisation and culture too. The Russian government has been apologetic from the beginning,and its likely they didnt need much convincing about either the Gita or Indias civilisational importance and imperatives. External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna opined,officially,that the complaint Krishna is evil and the book incompatible with Christian views appeared to be the work of some ignorant and misdirected or motivated individuals. However,while Krishna wisely acknowledged the need to not dignify such individuals with too much attention,he also assured Parliament the government is treating the matter seriously. In this contradiction between word and action lies the triumph of the trivial.
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Pretty little Tomsk,called the Siberian Athens because of its once predominant student population,was bypassed by the Trans-Siberian Railway and would have been wiped off the map but for its university and famous polytechnic,as well as its World War II-era industrial production. Now it has risen higher still to adjourn the Indian Parliament.
