Director of the Saint Petersburg State University, Mr. Nikolay Kropachev,
Distinguished Scholars,
Dear friends,
It gives me great pleasure to address this 300 year institution which has such great tradition of scholarship, especially of Indology.
I know that Saint Petersburg itself has a long history here. And the first famous Russian Indologist, Gerasim Lebedev, who visited India in the 18th century, was from here. He was responsible for the first Persian translation of Indian literary works.
Since then many other scholars have come from Russia, from Saint Petersburg, and people like Nicholay Roerich, even make their homes in India. We think of him as Indian in a way. And there are others like Ivan Minayev, and Fyodor Shcherbatskoy, and Alexander Mervart, who have really built up Indology in this country, and to me there is a particular importance of that which I would like to share with you.
I'm also very impressed by the range of topics that all of you have studied, you have specialized. I've looked through your brief biodatas which were given to me, and really what I saw there were a testament to years, decades of cooperation in the academic world between us. And the topics that you have all worked on range from ancient text to studies of religion, to history, philology, contemporary issues, political issues and even arts and fine arts and performing arts.
Now, this interest today is particularly pertinent, its particularly important, because in today's world, a country like India and one like Russia, we are constantly trying to refresh our relationship to deepen it, to find new linkages and common points. And here certainly the intellectual world can make a very big difference.
I spoke about the importance of Indology because it is today given the state of the world, the geopolitical equations in the world, it is particularly important that we have a direct understanding of each other rather than have our perception, determined by other countries and other societies and other traditions. So to me, Indology is something beyond knowledge and scholarship, and beyond culture and tradition. It is actually a very...it's an effort and an investment to directly, to firsthand understand another society, which is a very important partner, and certainly on behalf of that society I would like to express my appreciation to all of you, all the contribution you have made and the relationships that you have built.
I came to Saint Petersburg this afternoon, and before coming here I briefly visited a school. A school which is named after Rabindranath Tagore. There is obviously a gesture in naming that school, but today when I saw at the school level, students who had learnt Hindi, who had taken the trouble to have a sort of deep knowledge and feel for another culture, of a partner. It drove home to me, how important it is to nurture this sentiment between our two countries; that the relationship between India and Russia is not just one of politics, of diplomacy or academics or economics. It is something much deeper and at the end of the day the intellectual, the intelligence has role, the contribution of scholars to this understanding and to this bonding, is very very important. While school maybe demonstration of that at a very popular, at a very basic level, I think we also need exemplars who will set those directions and that is really about all of you too.
Now part of it is, as I said, is communication, relationship building, understanding each other. But I also make this point to you, we speak today of a multipolar world, how does the rebalancing in the world, how the...it's not a world which is dominated by a few countries or by a few societies or by a few traditions. But in that cultural rebalancing, I think today it is also important that we develop our own traditions. And I would say as someone who spent my working life in international relations and diplomacy, to me how to develop international relations with Indian characteristics is something which is a very major preoccupation. And certainly that is a subject which I would encourage Indologists also to look at, because if all the major societies with great traditions are able to approach the world from the perspective of their heritage and their culture, I think we will actually create a more democratic, a more diverse, a more pluralistic world.
Where India itself is concerned, I took very careful note what director said. We would certainly like to see and increase the number of international students. And I know the Ambassador and the Consul General will make efforts in that direction, and we will support them from the Foreign Ministry. And I also noted the point about having a special place here. And certainly we will try to create India corner in the university and see what we can do.
But behind all this, its really the importance of refreshing our understanding of each other, because you know, countries today, societies are changing. We all...the more experienced we are, the more important it is that we keep up with the times. We understand the changes which are underway and certainly today when we...you look at India, we are a economy which is approaching 4 trillion dollars. If you look at how digital India has become, if you look at the pace of change, including in education.
For the last ten years in India, everyday two new colleges are being established. So that is the pace of change where education is concerned. It's not just in education, you can see it in every aspect of the society. And our effort obviously is to ensure that in the next 25 years, we are successful in our effort at becoming a developed country. And a developed country doesn't just mean a developed economy. It is also a country which is aware and conscious and proud of its tradition, heritage and culture. So a large part of our debate, one part of it is about development in a socioeconomic sense, but one part of the debate is also a debate about our culture and tradition and history, and how we inculcate that more deeply, not just in the country but in the consciousness of the world, and here too, I think the partnerships with Indologists across the world would make a difference.
Once again I am really very very happy to be here today and spend time with all of you. I look forward to any thoughts, suggestions that you may have, and I would certainly like to assure you that we will make an effort to nurture the traditions of Indology, which has been one of the notable characteristics of the relationship between India and Russia.
Thank you for your attention.