Ban, Burn, Destroy

In the last decade or so, new emerging patterns of social censorship seem to have eclipsed the framework oflegal censorship that has been bequeathed to India by the British. Apart from innumerable local statutes,legal censorship is imposed by

(a) prosecution,
(b) banning by the State Government with an appeal to the High Court,
(c) customs law preventing import and export of a book,
(d) a civil suit for defamation, invasion of privacy and the like or
(e) through the film Censor Board.

Thus, D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover was successfully prosecuted all the way to the SupremeCourt in 1965. The latest state bans include those on Taslima Nasreen's Dwikhondito by West Bengal inNovember 2003 and James Laine's Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India by the Maharashtra Governmentearlier this month. A customs ban was imposed on Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses in 1988.

Likewise,Khushwant Singh's autobiography, Truth, Lies and a Little Malice, was injuncted by the Delhi High Courtin a suit filed by Maneka Gandhi. The Bandit Queen case decided by the Supreme Court was about cinemacensorship. Even though we cannot be complacent about court bans, which are increasing to silence the private,public and activist voices as with S. Kumar's suit against activists of the Narmada Bachao Andolan in 2001-03,a new combination of state and social censorship plagues India.

If the government bans a book and writing, it should take a firm and an independent decision based onlimited public interest grounds. When the Hone Anhone, Tamas, Ore Oru Gramathile andBhopal [gas tragedy] documentary cases came before the Supreme Court (1987-1992), the Court upheld thepreferred status of free speech. Today, State Governments no longer seek to defend the constitutional right tofree speech — including the right of every individual to decide what he/she wishes to read or see. Theysimply ban books and films totally abdicating their discretion to mob pressure and for electoral gains.

Little would be left of a free speech-based secular democracy if this trend continues. No government seemsto be immune to these pressures. On November 28, 2003, the Government of West Bengal proscribed TaslimaNasreen's book. Sunil Gangopadhyay's observation that the Bangladeshi version of the book was truncated andabridged compared to the Indian is hardly an argument; it is, in fact, a tribute to Indian democracy. Anyonehaving a personal grievance with the book can file a defamation suit. It was done by Syed Shamshul Haq inDhaka and Syed Hashmat Jalal in Kolkata.

In fact, on November 18, 2003, the Calcutta High Court injuncted the book. Even though the book was bannedby the Calcutta High Court on defamatory grounds, the West Bengal Government banned it 10 days later. Fordoing this, there have to be good public interest reasons — such as whether the work causes enmity betweengroups or has the deliberate and malicious intent to outrage the religious feelings of a community as definedin the Indian Penal Code. Little of this sort really existed in Ms. Nasreen's book other than the fact thatthe Ulema Council and others wanted to spite the book and its author. Shockingly, a patently illegal publicoffer of Rs.20,000 was made to anyone who would blacken Ms. Nasreen's face or garland her with used shoes.Social pressure and vote-bank politics triumphed over good governance.

Anything West Bengal does, Maharashtra tries to do better. In June 2003, the Oxford University Presspublished James Laine's book on Shivaji. Some historians protested on November 10, which led to an apology andwithdrawal of the book by the OUP on November 21, 2003. Once the book was withdrawn, surely the controversywas dead. However, on December 10, Shiv Sena workers sought an explanation from Shrikant Banulkar, aresearcher at the famous Bhandarkar Institute of Oriental Studies, Pune, whose name figured in Mr. Laine'slist of acknowledgements.

The controversy moved from banning books to intimidating authors. In protest, Dr. Mahendale, who had askedfor a ban on the book earlier, destroyed his own manuscript on Shivaji. On December 28, Raj Thackerayapologised to Dr. Banulkar. This should have ended the controversy. But it did not. On January 5, 2004, theBhandarkar Institute itself was ransacked by members of the Sambhaji Brigade. Thousands of pricelessmanuscripts were destroyed. After this, on January 13, the Maharashtra Government banned the book. Why? Toappease criminals and those behind them? Now it wants to arrest the publisher and the author.

The banning of the book on Shivaji demonstrates exactly how lumpen fundamentalism dominates our censorshiptoday. Even after a book has been withdrawn, threats and violence continue to result in the destruction of thevery books that form part of Maharashtra's heritage, which the elements claim to protect. The attitude of theMaharashtra Government displayed no application of mind. A book withdrawn from circulation was banned byplaying into the hands of lumpen elements for sectarian votes and an unedifying notoriety for defending asupposed heritage at the instance of those bent on destroying it.

The core of the emergence of the new form of social censorship has only one watchword: "You cannotread what we do not like even if we have not read it". To this is added the xenophobic threat that ifpeople help collaborate or help those (especially outsiders) who write on certain subjects, all hell willbreak loose with disproportionate ferocity. Mr. Laine's explanation that he merely reflectively summarisedwhat Indian historians had said seems more than plausible. But no one was interested in the merits of thecontroversy.

This new social censorship has become the order of the day. It was at the instance of angry Muslim elementsthat the Satanic Verses was subject to a customs ban. Miscreants sought to destroy Sahmat's exhibitionon Ayodhya, which displayed one panel on the various versions of the Ramayana. At the instance of L.K. Advaniand other BJP leaders (the party was in the Opposition in Parliament and in power in Delhi), the panel wasbanned by the Delhi Government in 1993 till the Delhi High Court liberated it years later. In December 1998,mischievous elements and other groups demonstrated against Deepa Mehta's film, Fire. In 2000, similarelements refused to permit the filming of Ms. Mehta's Water in Varanasi. In 1998, huge protestsprevented the Pakistani gazal vocalist, Ghulam Ali, from performing in Mumbai. In 1996, M.F. Husain'spaintings were destroyed by mobs — a travesty repeated in April-May 2002. In 2003, there was a little hiccupon whether Laloo Prasad Yadav would allow the exhibition of Prakash Jha's Gangajal in Bihar — towhich Mr. Yadav agreed. No doubt, political riots would have broken out if such approval had not been given.

All this is not about just public pressure to ban books or street pressure reaching a pitch that thegovernment is scared into retreat. Some of these incidents show the pervasiveness of a new and terrifyingsocial censorship. Mani Ratnam accepted some cuts in the film, Bombay, from the Shiv Sena leader, BalThackeray. Apart from the incidents concerning M.F. Husain, other examples are no less menacing. In March 1998and again 1999, the Bajrang Dal disrupted a beauty pageant in Gujarat. In the same year, copies of the Biblewere burnt in Rajkot. There is also a kind of informal pre-censorship. Michael Jackson met Mr. Thackeray anddonated the proceeds of his performance to a local charity before performing in Mumbai. He was allowed toperform. But the Australian group, Savage Garden, had to submit its lyrics and perform in a particular waywith the eventual threat that transgressors would be dealt with `underground'. Matters have gone worse.Despite investigations, there is still a question mark on the disappearance and death of the politicalcartoonist, Irfan Hussain, who published cartoons on anti-Christian violence. In Assam ULFA wanted bans on allkinds of films to which the State Government agreed to a limited extent.

Where does all this take us? The old inherited British model of public pressure and limited selective banshave gone. Today's new intimidating social censorship knows no limits. Direct threats are handed out by lumpenelements. Powerful informal censorship systems have crippled performance, films, shows and publications. Facedwith this barrage, state censorship has retreated or capitulated. Governance has been abandoned to mobintimidation at the price of free speech. The law — even in its width — was intended to outlaw maliciousspeech, which intended disruption. Today the disrupters claim a sensitivity that they do not possess and apower they should not have. Social censorship in India is a fatal cancer, which is destroying both India andits governance. It has degenerated into hoodlum and goonda rule. Is this the `feel-good factor' we arelooking for?

Rajeev Dhavan, Senior Advocate in the Supreme Court, is a well-known commentator on legal issues. Thisarticle appears here courtesy, The Hindu