A Book is Just a Book

To twist the famous song by Queen slightly, another book bites the dust and is being banned from production and circulation in the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat. Yes, we are talking about Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India by award winning author Joseph Lelyveld. And why has this happened? Well, according to some well-meaning ‘reviewers,’ the book refers to the Mahatma as a racist and a bisexual.

A psychoanalyst, Sudhir Kakar who has, in the past, documented Gandhi’s sexuality believes that Gandhi wrote letters to his female associates in “strong love language”. But according to him, to indicate that Gandhi was a homosexual is abysmal!

So, supposing Joseph Lelyveld had made similar remarks in his book, would that have been acceptable? Wouldn’t that have been interpreted as the author trying to imply that Gandhi had a love affair with not one but many women? Would that have stopped the naysayers from banning the book and demanding a public apology from the author, who has supposedly hurt the sentiments of a billion people?

To start with, if it had not been for this controversy, I’m not even sure, just how many people in India would have even been aware of this book’s existence. Such attacks on books and authors simply amplify the popularity of the book and spark a certain curiosity amongst readers because there is something provocative and debatable that begs to be explored further. Also much heated and frantic debate ensues on news channels and in newspapers and magazines, fanning the controversy further.

Just last year, the book Shivaji: Hindu King in Muslim India by American author James Laine was banned because local political groups felt that it contained derogatory remarks about the hero and it had content that could catalyze “social enmity.” This was followed by threats to attack book stores and anyone who did not abide by the ban. In 2007, an autobiography on Shivaji by the same author was greeted with incendiary threats because the book was supposedly causing “communal disharmony.” This was also followed by vandalism at the institute where the author had conducted his research on the book!

Not so long ago, eminent author Rohinton Mistry’s book, Such a Long Journey that was part of the Bachelor of Arts curriculum in the Mumbai University was chucked out of the syllabus overnight because it supposedly had passages in offensive language. Last year the book titled, Nehru-Gandhi Family: Secular or Half-Castes written by Hariram Gupta was banned too because of certain supposedly scandalous and derogatory statements against the two families.

And like they say, the list is endless.

If you look at the global context, cult favourites like The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, To Kill A Mocking Bird by Harper Lee, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling, Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, 1984 by George Orwell have been banned in various parts of the world at different times in history for reasons ranging from religious to political to accusations of racism to explicit vulgarity to violence and witchcraft.

Do books ever cause communal unrest? Do the nit-pickers even read these books before raising objections against their content? Why should anyone ‘ban’ someone’s right to read and write what they want? Don’t the readers have the right to form their opinion before a book is snatched away from them under the pretext of nationalism or regionalism or righteous protection of our collective morality?

There can be many valid or totally pointless reasons behind the dislike for a certain book.
While everyone has the right to exercise their freedom of expression against or for something, it is important to understand that life is too short and books too many and for an avid reader, each book is a door to a new world and no one has the right to shut these doors on our faces. If we do not like a book for any reason, let us please move on to another wonderful work of literature that awaits us, sitting anxiously on some wall, in some corner, in some rack of a book store, waiting to be held and savoured for all it is worth.

And if we do want to honour and show our respect towards our heroes, there are many better ways of doing that than banning books. Why not follow their principles, continue the good they did, spread their values ?
Coming back to the latest onslaught on the Great Soul, we will let Ranjit Hoskote, writer and General Secretary of Pen India that fights for the right to expression, have the last word. He says, “You can’t cite a worse example of third-hand reportage and comment. How can you ban a book you haven’t read?”

Let the books be. Love some. Hate some. But let people read them and form their own opinion. Let us unbox our minds to varied opinions and invest more effort in other compelling issues that need our attention. Who knows, a banned book could very well be that one book meant to bring about the change we have all been waiting for.