Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Few days back when I came to know about a book on an Indian Business Barron on the Banned Indian Books’ List, the first thing that came in my mind were the lines from Tagore. What an irony, we live in a country, whose forefathers have dreamt about a nation without fear, about a nation with right to speech, right to knowledge; and where the Government enjoys the “privilege” to “freely” ban the books, censor what it feels offensive!
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth...
Few days back when I came to know about a book on an Indian Business Barron on the Banned Indian Books’ List, the first thing that came in my mind were the lines from Tagore. What an irony, we live in a country, whose forefathers have dreamt about a nation without fear, about a nation with right to speech, right to knowledge; and where the Government enjoys the “privilege” to “freely” ban the books, censor what it feels offensive!
Wikipedia describes Banned books as the books whose free access is not permitted. Further it says that the practice of banning books is just another form of censorship, and often has political, religious or moral motivations. In our country, banning books have got its history since the British rule days. In fact, few of the Books
Department of Publication, Directorate of Printing, Ministry of External Affairs or Home Affairs, there’s no where official documentation of which books have been restricted, leave any thought about when and why? Evidently Amit Prakash also reported, “Irrational application of the law apart, the very purpose of imposing bans, that are almost never revoked, appears defeated in the face of the fact that there is no comprehensive list of banned books either with the Customs Department or with the Home Ministry. And even if one does exists, officers responsible for issuing notification banning books are unaware of it.....”
that have been banned/censored by the then rules, still have not been permitted for the free access. Interestingly, exploring the internet I was able to compile the list of books banned by Government of India (GoI) through the time, but couldn’t able to get a GoI official page that takes the note of this “noble cause”! Being it
Department of Publication, Directorate of Printing, Ministry of External Affairs or Home Affairs, there’s no where official documentation of which books have been restricted, leave any thought about when and why? Evidently Amit Prakash also reported, “Irrational application of the law apart, the very purpose of imposing bans, that are almost never revoked, appears defeated in the face of the fact that there is no comprehensive list of banned books either with the Customs Department or with the Home Ministry. And even if one does exists, officers responsible for issuing notification banning books are unaware of it.....”
that have been banned/censored by the then rules, still have not been permitted for the free access. Interestingly, exploring the internet I was able to compile the list of books banned by Government of India (GoI) through the time, but couldn’t able to get a GoI official page that takes the note of this “noble cause”! Being it
My motive behind this post has been an open discussion on the reasons for restricting books, with a compilation. Rationales, I learnt, can be enlisted as:
1. Religious, the list contains Hindu Heaven: The Land of the Lingam banned in 1930s to Early Islam & The True Furqan: the 21st century Quran banned in 2005. I don’t know what really our tolerance limit is. We love bragging about our own very narrow niche, we love talking all shit about the thing/person/community/religion we don’t like, but when we it comes to a healthy discussion, we just surrender! Interestingly, our brilliantly proactive government knows what can ignite the unsaid! In fact, the pre-independence British Government also knew our attitude quite futuristically, that the books restricted by them way back in 1930s still are not allowed to read.
2. Books on our sociological and sexual behaviours have also been all time favourite to Governments through time to attract the imposition of restriction. This category includes Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male, and Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female (1953), The Jewel in the Lotus (A historical survey of the sexual culture of the East, 1968), and Scented Garden (Anthropology of sex life in the Levant, 1945), etc.
3. Politics and politicians’ related Books have always allured the restrictions. One interesting book attracting temporary restriction was Seymour Hersh’s The Price of Power: Kissinger and Nixon in the White House. Morarji Desai obtained a temporary ban as the book described him as a star performer for CIA. Various books on Gandhi, Nehru have also been banned through the years.
4. Few other books, categorically miscellaneous, but somehow or other related to politics or Religion also being banned by the GoI. V S Naipaul’s Area of Darkness, Greville Wynne’ memoirs: The Man From Moscow, Hamish McDonald’s Polyester Prince, Rushdie’s temporarily banned The Moor’s Last Sigh
are few to quote.
are few to quote.
The point of thought is that, when we are ranked as a Free Nation, when we boast about our culture, our democracy, about our openness to discussion, in fact fondness of discussion, why do we still need to disallow people to read a book. What is that scares us? Are we really so intolerable that we would not be able to listen the criticism, if any, patiently in a healthy environment? If yes, doesn’t this the right time to adopt the change, to change our attitudes? We love and dare to watch porn, but are afraid to talk about Sex, about Politics and about Religion. For us, Temples with sexual-mudras are okay, Vatsayayana’s KamaSutra is a heritage, but talking about sex is taboo! It is the time for change! It’s!
And for the Government, decide tactfully what actually requires restriction; and know how to monitor it. A periodical check on what is relevant and what gone irrelevant regarding restrictions is highly expected from GoI. What could have been a reason for British Government to ban books in pre-Independence era could be just a fact in present scenario.
Enlisting the banned Indian books, I browsed through many a sites and blogs. Then, I cross-checked the books’ availability on Amazon, Landmark and Google-Books. Surprisingly, a few books were available on Landmark too, though almost all were available on Amazon and GoogleBooks.
The List of Banned Indian Books:
The List of Banned Indian Books:
: the 21st century Quran
Evidently, American Library Association (ALA) promotes Banned Books Week (BBW) as an annual event, held during the last week of September. This year BBW is to be celebrated during September 25−October 2, 2010. The ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) is collecting data about banned books since 1990 and compiles lists of most frequently challenged books.
Finally, heartiest acknowledgement to Kaustav Ghosh, who told me about a banned book which inspired me to take this post. The blogposts, articles which helped me lot while writing this post, in addition to Wikipedia, include:
1. Chatterley‘s Lover still banned in India by Amit Prakash
2. Banned books in India: 1970s-2006 by Nilanjana S Roy
3. Banned Books in India: Call for Help
i am looking for a book which was banned by indira gandhi a book on TAJ MAHAL, can you let us know
ReplyDelete@Anonymous -- I know about P.N.Oak's work Taj Mahal: A True Story through forwarded mails and also articles/forums on it at BBC, http://www.stephen-knapp.com etc...but have never actually come across any Book etc, and any mentioned banned on it...
ReplyDeletePunit,
ReplyDeleteI second your thoughts that we only boast about our culture, democracy and openness to any discussion but this is merely one of the hypocrisy that prevails in our country.....I do not know if the motive behind banning any book is that it will damage the society or whatever but I do feel personally that any free person will read any book freely....its the perception that is difficult to change!!
P.S: I am glad I am a free person.
@Shipra mam--I sometime feel these bans are just to lure community sentiments, as there's no clear cut regulation in practice. Moreover, almost every book that has banned is available at Online shops
ReplyDeleteThe ban on Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India has been lifted. So it should be filed as 'temporary ban.'
ReplyDeleteThanks Ibn....will sure update the post soon... Keep visiting, such suggestions are also welcome... :)
ReplyDeleteThe following page contains four links which should give you the closest thing to an official list I have found: http://www.chennaicustoms.gov.in/imports/proh1.htm
ReplyDelete