Can We Ban All Bans?

It is difficult not to invoke the ridiculous ban of Satanic Verses by Rajiv Gandhi's government whenever acontroversial book is sought to be proscribed in India. One would have thought - at least, hoped - thatthe pallbearers of secularism (and liberty and freedom of speech and other such nice-sounding things) wouldhave learnt from the mistakes of the past by now but, alas, the recent news from Calcutta is more thandistressing.

For today, West Bengal chief minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee announced the formal ban on Taslima Nasreen'scontroversial book, Dwikhandito (Split Into Two): "I have read the book and it has beenproscribed".

Perhaps he expects us to beassuaged by his claim that he read the book before banning it? So the obvious question to ask the goodchief minister would be why the rest of us can't be allowed the same freedom as well, so that we canmake up our own minds?

My good friend CT (those are his actual initials; no wonder he is called a Conspiracy Theorist) was herethis afternoon and pronounced with his usual authoritative air that, actually, we wouldn't read the damnedbook then. At worst it could be cynically seen as a conspiracy to jack up sales, for hadn't the bhadralok budhijibis- the gentle intellectuals, he translated habitually - of Calcutta all collectively yawned and dismissed thebook ever since it hit the headlines first, for being a kiss and tell account?

The press would publish the, well, interesting, passages, CT expounded, so why would we need to buy or readthe book? We would all actually quite salaciously enjoy gossiping about all these fellows caught with theirpants down and - if you will pardon the mixed metaphor - therefore getting their knickers in atwist.

And while we are at it, as an afterthought, some platitudes about freedom of speech would be mouthed,before the conversation digresses to Nasreen's execrable prose and moans on how it is not literature but licence --and a fraud in the name of feminism and such like -- are heard, but then, yes, then, we would remember those sadistic Sanghis going on about how anywriting on Islam is quickly banned but sustained slurs on Hinduism are celebrated with awards by themissionaries, mullahs and Marxists and so on...and how they - not the three Ms but the SS - arethe ones who ought to be banned first ... CT's voiced trailed off (while somebody wanted to know whatliterature award is controlled by the mullahs and the Marxists)

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"False, frivolous and imaginary" had been the charge by Syed Shamsul Haq in his defamation suitthat had led to the court injunction on November 18 in Calcutta. Taslima had "hurt" him as a writer and"embarrassed" him in the family, he had claimed, by writing about him in her latest controversial book onher "personalrelationships" as the Press Trust of India had coyly put it.

"I'm quite surprised that Kolkata banned the book outright.
The Dhaka courts would do that, and I'm notsurprised"

So wrote a friend from Bangladesh - on a mailing list for South Asian Literature I happen to be on - whennews of the controversy had first hit the headlines some weeks back.

My Calcutta pride was cut to the quick. No, no, I had confidently replied back, it was merely acourt-injunction. Court injunctions are routine. And quite different from a government ban. I had even citedthe case about Maneka Gandhi successfully stalling the publication of Khushwant Singh's autobiographyfor many years. Just to show how usual all this seemed to be. Par for the course. Write a book, face thecharges. What's the big deal? For unlike Dhaka, I reasoned to myself, in civilised Calcutta, Nasreen would beable to defend her book, and at least be judged fairly.

Needless to say, none of us discussing the book and the controversy surrounding it had read it andwere relying merely on the garbled press reports. CT's scenario was pretty much accurate in terms of whatfollowed on the thread. Secretly, I had been a little relieved that the whole angle of "insult toIslam" had been relegated to the background because of this court case. The case would drag on tilleveryone lost interest and that would be the end of it, I had smugly thought.

Besides, apart from having a reputation for being a serious reader and writer, the chief minister of WestBengal is also said to be a pragmatist and a good friend of the deputy prime minister, whose views on thebungling over the Satanic Verses fiasco are well-known, so there seemed no danger. Calcutta would notdescend to what Dhaka has become was my triumphant thought. How wrong I was.

Let's grant first that publishing "personal relations" - even real, not imagined or exaggerated - is fraughtwith all sorts of nuances and there is a completely different debate about ethics, morality, sexualhypocrisy and propriety and all the rest of it that this latest l'affaire Nasreen engenders, but fornow let's focus on the more serious grounds cited, the same grounds as were cited for banning the SatanicVerses: those of potential "communal disharmony".

Was the fear of "communal disharmony" so real that the government thought it fit to ban the book?Will this ban succeed in its avowed aim, of preventing it? I don't think so. If anything, it would be quite tothe contrary. While affront to religious sensibilities is a serious issue - as witnessed most recently overthe furore over depiction of Ganesha in an old academic book - the genie let out of the bottle by the SatanticVerses case has metamorphosed into a horrifying monster that looms over all discourse surrounding freedom ofexpression and speech.

Despite not having read the book under question, it is difficult to imagine its readership of a few thousandbecoming a "law and order problem" that routinely televised interviews and speeches -with viewership in lakhs - by some of the hardline heroes dealing with the same subject do not.It is an insult to the people of West Bengal, and a commentary on its administration, to suggest that its continuing to remainin public domain would lead to a serious disturbance that could not be controlled. And we do not really needto go into the psychographics of those few who read books as against the rabble which could conceivably beroused.

So what explains the ban, then, for surely even CT could see that his sell-well claims were at best acynical comment? Surely at least some of all those people complaining to the CM must have actually beenaffronted? And there are, it is being argued, "comments on Islam" that are not there in theBangladesh edition of the book.

So what? That is the same as the argument that the name of the character Sita had been changedto Nita in the film Fire. Big deal. We need not agree with the methods of those seeking to sell theirproducts - books or films or whatever - but hasn't it been proved empirically that each ban, each prohibitionof any sort actually proves to be counterproductive, no matter how pathetic the product being peddled? Nobody is being forced to read the book - or see themovie - and those offended could surely always move court or write passionate rebuttals? Whence came thegovernment as the arbiter of cultural tastes? What was to prevent it from remaining a matter to be taken up and decided by the courts? Couldn't the aggrieved - if there really are aggrieved - have moved court?

It is difficult not to think of CT who at this point in the heated argument had paused, theatrically takinga deep drag of his cigarette as he worked out a response: Look, yaar, I don't know all the facts, but we all knowthat elections are approaching. With the ceasefire, Vajpayee is hoping to silence not just the guns but alsothe Togadias and other hawks, even his deputy who has now become a dove...

CT was now almost whispering: Look, can't you see that it is a win-win? The chief gets his immediateproblem sorted out, gets all these pests off his back, silences his critics who had berated him for talkingabout madrasas on the Bangladesh border, proves to his constituency that he is a true blue "secular"believing in "minority appeasement"... Ah, but what about his good friend, the DPM, wouldn't hedisapprove?

Hmmm, as for him, CT continued without pausing, he has his ear to the ground, and believes in real politik, he knows that the hardliners arerunning out of steam. They need something to work themselves into a lather about, before they can indulge insome serious rabble rousing. And what can invite a more delightful rubbing of hands than a ban on a book to"appease the minorities"? You might hear some mild denunciation and comparison with theSatanic Verses, but could he - you tell me - have asked for more on the ground level? A harvest of votes. Anda license to ban any and everything that is even moderately irksome. At this point, CT left with an ominous,"bhai, rest you figure out".

CT was of course being his cynical self, more than getting carried away, and easy to dismiss, mistakingeffect for cause, consequence for sequence. But even if there is no reason to doubt that the West Bengal CM acted in what hethought to be in the best interest of his state, and we give him the benefit of doubt, in addition to all theusual reasons against banning a book, I can immediately see CT's scenario unfolding in the days, weeks, monthsand years to come.

So far you had the general janta dismissing all sundry and sporadic demands for various bans - Valentine'sDay, Deepa Mehta's Fire, Anand Patwardhan's War and Peace, Habib Tanvir's Ponga Pandit, Tehelka or Judeo tapetelecast, to name a few off-hand - as little more than political gimmickry, but now it would only, I suspect,feed the deep-seated grouse against the perceived bias for the minorities. So why can't the Hindus - or anybody else - demand - and get - similar bans for the flimsiest of reasons? would bethe reasoning. And that logic is irrefutable.

Perhaps unwittingly but, with this ban, the West Bengal CM has scored a self-goal for himself and for allthose who wish an end to "communal disharmony". Those believing in freedom of speech, expression andliberty should speak up against this ban now if they are serious that Calcutta should not become anotherDhaka. We haven't yet been able to live down the inexcusable ban on Rushdie's book - with astoundinglyappalling repercussions across the world - and did not need another such, to put it politely, ill-thought outmove.

PS: And to think that all these months there's not been much of a noise against the ban on yahoo groups because it seemed so stupid - and pointless and counterproductive - that one thought it would not - could notpossibly - be enforced for so long. Unless "we" all speak up, "they" won't listen. "We" are the guilty.

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