Why we shouldn't blame Penguin for the Doniger debacle

After quite some time book banning is in news again with the withdrawal of Hindus: An Alternative History by Wendy Doniger by Penguin from Bharat.  It has triggered varied reactions from the media and intelligentsia alike but one question no one seems to be asking: in an internet era can books really be banned? I have not heard whether if you want to buy an ecopy of Hindus online you will be denied the purchase if you are from Bharat. I don’t think you will be.

Nor do I think if you buy a hard copy online and want to have it delivered at your place the online retailers will refuse to deliver you the copy if the delivery venue lies within India. The book is still freely (and also for free; someone circulated it on Twitter) available online. If we go by the court verdict, it doesn’t mention anything about the online fate of the book (at least as much as has been reported by papers)..

Really, in the internet era, that is post Satanic Verses, it has become pointless to slap country-wide or state-wide ban on books. Internet has contracted the potential of a book ban to the confines of, at the maximum, a university syllabus or school curriculum. In other words, outside the controlled and controllable contours of educational institutions or defined programs book bans don’t work anymore.

And frankly, it’s not that ban seekers aren’t aware of futility of book bans.  Despite knowing that ban doesn’t work anymore, if they continue to seek ban on books or films, it’s because it has been seen time and again that ban politics ensures returns for ban seekers with little or no cost borne by them: because each time a brouhaha is kicked up on a book or a film (or any artistic output) our institutes cave in giving the ban-seeking group the halo of being protectors of community pride or identity which was under attack. This pays rich dividends to practitioners of identity-based politics which most political parties in India practice, a fact that explains why all of them have subverted freedom of expression (books, films etc) from time to time.

The Congress government under Rajiv Gandhi caved in and banned Satanic Verses. The Congress government in Maharashtra, few years ago, had Such a Long Journey removed from syllabus. Narendra Modi slapped a ban on a book on Gandhi because it argued that the Mahatma had homosexual leanings for a Jew. A year or so ago, Jayalalitha didn't offer Kamal Hasan any protection to  ensure the release of his movie Viswarupam until the actor producer agreed to truncate his movie to make sure his movie didn't offend some mad mullahs who alleged that the movie had scenes that showed them in poor light. The Left government in Bengal hounded out Taslima Nasreen some years back in the wake of protests by a fundoo Muslim group. And now an obscure Hindutva group manages to bully Penguin. 

I don’t know the legal details of the books that were slapped ban on by our courts, but one – Satanic Verses. There is no ban on production or possession of Satanic Verses. The ban is on public display of the book: you can’t keep the book in stores but can at home. (And I don't think the other court verdicts on books differ very much in essence.) 

If public display is the issue then I am sure those who slap bans don't read the content of a book to determine whether the allegations made against the book indeed stand the test of logic; what is considered is the impact of availability (public visibility) of the book. In other words, it's the risk that its public visibility poses to law and order which is the deciding factor for slapping a ban. 

This, in other words, means a book ban slapped by an institution is an admission of its inability to handle law and order without submitting to the demand of a gunda group. One can  also say putting to test the ability to maintain law and order without submitting to the demand of a gunda group for the sake of a nebulous concept like freedom of expression is not considered worth the effort by our institutes. 

The Wendy Doniger incident is a little different. Here the publisher agreed to withdraw copies of a book directed to do so by a court. And many have said that Penguin, with its deep pockets, could have challenged the verdict in a higher court. But, given the commitment shown by our institutes to protecting artistic outputs when attacked by lampoons, who can say that Penguin wasn't worried that Hindutva elements would harm their business interests in India, especially in an election year, unless they met their demand without showing a whimper of protest? You can't count on authorities anyway!

Shrinking Artistic Tolerance in India

Recently the Indian government armtwisted Jaipur Literature Festival organizers to have Salman Rushdie dropped from their invitee list. The government has justified its decision by saying that Rushdie’s visit will hurt Muslim sentiments thanks to his book Satanic Verses which insulted Islam by caricaturing the Prophet Mohamed.

Rushdie has been coming to the festival since it started, but it’s the first time the government wants us to believe his visit will wound religious sentiments. UP elections are near and UP has a sizeable Muslim population. UP is a place the Cong, the leading party of the ruling coalition, can ill afford to lose because being among the largest states in India, UP has a big impact on general elections.

The Rushdie controversy is not an isolated incident. It’s the recent installment of a series of incidents in India where outfits of all political hues or their affiliates have attacked people or work (books, movies , paintings, etc) opposed to their strain of beliefs.

The reasons for the outbursts are varied. Sometimes it’s a political party desperate to retain its political space, sometimes a political newbie trying to make a mark for himself, sometimes a political party making a desperate bid to woo a community (Hindu or Muslim).

Three incidents related to books will help you understand the pattern.

Around seven years ago, Taslima Nasreen (the writer of Lajja) had been forced out of Bengal by the Left government and then out of the country by the central government which refused to renew her visa. Why? Because Taslima had expressed blasphemous views in her book Lajja and mobs had taken to the streets demanding her ouster from Bengal when her visa was due for renewal. The Left government justified its decision saying her stay would have led to communal riots.

About a year ago, a political aspirant from the Thackeray clan (a family that founded and heads a regional political right wing outfit which models itself on Hindu nationalism and chauvinism) got together a mob which burnt the copies of Such A Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry alleging the book to have provocative material (not sure to provoke whom) demanding the removal of the book from English honors syllabus. The authorities obliged (apparently to quell the mob).

And then came this Rushdie controversy.

As the instances above demonstrate, it’s not just parties coming from one strain of political or social belief who demand book bans and persecute writers (or creative people guilty of challenging popular beliefs through their work) for their ends, but parties of all political color (from left to right) partake in them and frame their demand and actions according to their constituency.

If you read the books as against the claims that the ban-seekers make, you will know that they don’t read the books they seek ban on. Lajja has nothing against Islam in it; it’s a story about a Hindu Bengali family in Bangladesh; and Such A Long Journey was published in the 70s (and demanded a withdrawal of in 2011) and is loosely about Congress politics in Bombay, in the 70s, a party which the Thackerays are anyway hysterically opposed to. (I have read Lajja, but not Such a Long Journey.)

This hostility on books or any creative output works on a certain belief.

Banning of a book or movie doesn’t hit people’s interest in the way, say, closing of a factory does. So whether you are part of the establishment imposing a ban or forcing out an author or you are part of sloganeering mob demanding a ban or an ouster, the belief on either side is since the common man won’t be hurt beyond, say, the denial of a book or a movie, they will move on and the intelligentsia will stop shouting on TV once the media get another story. Elections are won and lost on more immediate and tangible issues, not on books, after all.

And, of course, there is the additional gain for the political party of ingratiating itself with a group/community (whatever) through the emotive route, which has a long-lasting electoral value, where reason is always a casualty.

What the establishment overlooks is each time you yield to a bullying mob, you concede a space that is hard to retrieve. What they also forget is when application of force becomes an accepted means to silence a contrary voice, you lose the ability to tolerate because you don’t need to stress your endurance to tolerate; an easier option is available – force.

It’s one thing to brag about having great values (in this case, freedom of speech and free thought) as a nation; it’s another to be ready to defend them at whatever cost they demand. Great Britain gave knighthood to Rushdie in the teeth of opposition from the Islamic world. France gave political asylum to Taslima Nasreen after she was hounded out from India.