Why do you have War and Peace at home, Bombay High Court judge asks Bhima Koregaon accused

Mumbai: A certain Bombay High Court judge raised a storm after he allegedly inquired 'activist' Vernon Gonsalves who had been arrested in connection with the 'Urban Naxal' case, why he had Leo Tolstoy's literary classic, War and Peace, at his residence.

Keeping in mind the expected lines, social media rushed to pontificate about the prevailing circumstances. However, now, it turns out that the judge hadn't referred to the classic at all but was referring to an entirely different book.

The confusion, it seems, was over Roy and Tolstoy.

The Bombay High Court on Thursday said it knew that Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace was a literary classic and that it didn't mean to suggest that all the books seized by police in the Elgar Parishad-Koregaon Bhima case were incriminating.

The clarification by Justice Sarang Kotwal came a day after he asked accused Gonsalves to explain why he kept "objectionable material" like a copy of War and Peace at his home.

The counsel for a co-accused told the court that the War and Peace that the court had referred to on Wednesday was a collection of essays edited by Biswajit Roy, titled 'War and Peace in Junglemahal: People, State and Maoists'.

That book (according to its publishers), is a "collection of essays by well-known activists and academics including mediators and examines the failed peace initiatives in context of the governments' elitist developmental policies, doublespeak of parliamentary parties and Maoists' follies."

The judge's purported remarks stirred up thousands of reactions on Twitter.

Justice Kotwal said: "I knew that Tolstoy's War and Peace was a literary classic. I was reading the whole list from the panchnama attached to the charge-sheet. It was written in such poor handwriting. I know War and Peace.

And there I was making a query (on why Gonsalves had copies of these books) but did not want to suggest that everything was incriminating."

The counsel for co-accused Sudha Bhardwaj, Yug Chaudhary, said that on Wednesday, the court was referring to the book by Roy (and not the one by Tolstoy).

The judge then said: "There were so many references to war and other titles. Before I went to War and Peace, I made a reference to Rajya Daman (another book) too. Can a judge not ask any questions in court?"

Gonsalves told the court that he owned 2,000 books and none of these books, including the ones seized from his home by the Pune police, were banned.

Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh used the occasion to welcome us all to 'New India'.

"Truly bizarre that somebody is being asked by a judge of the Bombay High Court to explain why he has copy of Tolstoy's War & Peace, a true classic. And to think Tolstoy was a major influence on the Mahatma. Welcome to New India," he tweeted.