Bharat Mata by M. F. HusainAmardeep Singh speaks out against the communalization of censorship in the recent issue of Himal Magazine. Ostensibly this is against the backdrop of the recent blog censorship by the Government. In the same issue, there is also a revealing commentary by a certain IAS officer who thinks that the main distinguishing feature of Bombay is its 6 million strong slum dwellers.
Anyway, back to Mr. Singh. In his zeal to appear secular, Mr. Singh presents a colorful canvas of communal censorship and practically covers all religions barring perhaps the Parsis and Buddhists.
Here is a brief list of items grouped by religion that he refers to and which drew communal ire and censorship in most cases:
Christian
The Da Vinci Code
Hindu
Bharat Mata by Husain (Painting)
Deepa Mehta's 1996 Fire
Girlfriend
(Fanaa)
James Laine's book Shivaji: A Hindu King in Islamic India
Sikh
Rahul Rawail's 2005 Jo Bole So Nihaal
Muslim
Salman Rushdie's allegedly anti-Islamic The Satanic Verses
Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed
Political/Government
Michael Edwards' Nehru: A Political Biography was banned in 1975.
Anand Patwardhan's film War and Peace
Rakesh Sharma's The Final Solution
(Fanaa)
The most dangerous idea in Mr. Singh's article is not that all these instances of fanatic behavior should be seen in the same light but the fact that he tries to create an arbitrary standard for what may or may not be deemed offensive:
Certainly the question should be asked: What about images that are specifically created to offend, such as the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed? Or, along the same lines, what should be done with a film that fans the flame of communal hatred?Er, Singhji, therein lies the problem. You may think that these were created specifically to offend. Would you agree then that Bal Thackerey was well within his rights to issue a fatwa on Husain? Also, you steer clear from discussing the difference between mere disapproval shown by a community and bloody riots, beheadings and movie theatre bombings.
Do you have the balls to use a Mohammed cartoon instead of Husain's painting in your article?
4 comments:
"An obvious solution is to abolish the current system of censorship by government altogether, removing it as an object in the agenda of religious groups. The maintenance of a censorship system in an otherwise free society is based on a paternalistic and oversimplified concept of what literary and artistic representations actually do. "
Mr.Singh does make sense there, doesn't he? In fact, the entire last paragraph of his article criticizes the idea of censorship as a whole. Why, then, has he displeased Mr.Barbarindian?
RA
Organized religion has always spawned controversies of all kinds. Best to follow Osho and Krishnamurthy- they preach humanity as the only religion.
sorry barb, this is OT, but just saw Hiren's comment above:
> Best to follow Osho and Krishnamurthy- they preach humanity
Hi Hiren:
you must read 'Osho - The bhagwan that failed' by Hugh Milne to see the extent of perversion and crime that went on in his 'ashrams'. In my view, he was far, far away from 'humanity'
He had a mersmerizing presence which fooled the vulnerable. and the amount of disrepute he brought to India...
I noticed a small error. Amardeep very conveniently classifies the Satanic Verses ban as a political one and not religious. I remember Satanic Verses was deemed offensive to a particular religion -witness the riots that broke out in India and overseas.
The book was not concerned with a political party or personality.
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