The prize-winning author Rohinton Mistry was today at the centre of a row in India after his novel Such a Long Journey was deleted from a university reading list after complaints from an extremist group.
The decision to withdraw the book by the vice chancellor of Mumbai University, Dr Rajan M Welukar, shocked many in India's cosmopolitan commercial centre. Supporters of Mistry and free speech campaigners criticised the university for agreeing to the demands of the nationalist Shiv Sena, which has a reputation for using violence to intimidate opponents.
Mistry, an Indian-born Canadian, issued a statement decrying the "sorry spectacle of book-burning and book-banning", adding: "Mumbai University has come perilously close to institutionalising the ugly notion of self-censorship."
"The Shiv Sena has followed its depressingly familiar script of threats and intimidation that Mumbai has endured since the organisation's founding in 1966," the author said. "More bobbing, weaving, and slippery behaviour is no doubt in the offing. But one thing remains: a political party demanded an immediate change in syllabus, and Mumbai University [made] the book disappear the very next day."
The banned book is set in India in the 1970s. Published in 1991 and shortlisted for the Booker prize, it describes the life and loves of a bank clerk from Mumbai's Parsee community against a background of political unrest. The Shiv Sena ie described in broadly negative terms.
Mohan Rawale, a Shiv Sena official, said the book was full of "very bad, very insulting words", especially about Bal Thackeray, 83, the group's founder and leader.
"It is our culture that anything with insulting language should be deleted. Writers can't just write anything. They can't write wrong things," said Rawale, who admitted not having read the book.
The campaign to ban Such a Long Journey was launched by Aditya Thackeray, the leader's grandson and son of the current executive president of Shiv Sena, who is head of the group's youth wing. Analysts say the group is using the issue to launch Aditya Thackeray's political career.
"We have no issues with the book being available in the market but it is being forced upon us," Aditya Thackeray, who is studying history, told local reporters. "That is not acceptable."
In fact, the novel was an optional text on a second year literature reading list, sources at the university said.
Mistry added: "As for the grandson of the Shiv Sena leader, what can – what should – one feel about him? Pity, disappointment, compassion? Twenty years old, the beneficiary of a good education, he is about to embark on the Sena's well-trodden path, to appeal, like those before him, to all that is worst in human nature."
Supporters of Mistry packed meetings in Mumbai to protest against the ban. "We are headed towards a fascist ethos where someone decides what others think," said Anand Patwardhan, a respected filmmaker, at one event.
In recent years Shiv Sena's popularity has dwindled but its campaigns bring publicity. Muslims are a favourite target. Earlier this year the group tried to stop the Bollywood blockbuster My Name Is Khan going on release in Mumbai on the basis that the protagonist, Shahrukh Khan who is Muslim, had said that Mumbai was for "all Indians" and backed Pakistani cricketers playing in India. Sena's attempt failed.
An editorial today in the party mouthpiece, Saamna magazine, called for a ban on burqas, very rarely seen in India. The magazine said the veil was a threat to security and that criminals used it to commit crimes.
"Since they don't know what they are doing, may they be forgiven" is my prayer for them.
Thank you and enjoy the rest of your weekend,
Alex sir,
ReplyDeleteI am a regular reader of your blog,though I have never posted any comments.Fear of the English professor!True,we are becoming an intolerant society.The saddest thing is that the intolerance is more among those who are well educated,whichis a dangerous trend.What can we do but pray!