A year ago, a constable from the local police station arrived at our office with a complaint about one of our books. A newspaper had carried a story that was to be included in the book, and two months after the story appeared, someone filed a complaint in a police station in Mumbai claiming that the story, which was based on a religious text, offended and hurt his sentiments and those of his community. The Mumbai police sent the complaint on to our local thana , and a constable was dispatched to carry out an enquiry.
As someone who runs an office that employs a good number of women, I was both surprised and worried. Who was the complainant and what community did he represent? He claimed that thousands of others like him were offended, but we had only his word for it. Why should we believe him? Had those thousands complained to him? Why would they do that? They had certainly not complained to us.
I was worried because the self-appointed guardians of our morality are often violent and intimidatory, and the tone of the complaint was both righteous and threatening, almost as if he knew the message would be passed on. I did not know what I should be doing or what should be done.
As it happened, the book in question had not been contracted yet, and without knowing its full contents, the complainant could clearly not file a case to stop its publication, so the issue sort of fizzled out. But had the courts admitted the case, would we have fought it or capitulated and agreed not to include the story? It’s difficult to say.
And yet, why should it be difficult? As a publisher, and more specifically as a feminist publisher, freedom of speech and expression is a right that we passionately defend and believe in. But was it just our call? The author, for example, felt extremely vulnerable and was also frightened of the possible consequences. How would we have reacted had she chosen to withdraw her story? The complaint to the police specifically named individuals — this is what the law allows you to do, to target specific people — and two of them had nothing whatsoever to do with the book in question. Could we allow them to be thus targeted? More, had the police enquiry found substance to justify the complaint, would we, as small publishers, have had the resources to pursue the case?
These are questions that are becoming increasingly important for those in the world of writing and publishing today. As story after story unfolds — and the Wendy Doniger case is only the most recent of these — it becomes clear that publishers will start to exercise more and more caution when choosing what to publish, and self censorship may become common practice. What’s less clearly understood are the dangers of such practice.
Book publishers are not alone in this: the media do it routinely. This is why, with elections looming, and the prospect of a right wing government on the horizon, virtually all media channels and newspapers — even those who prided themselves on being aligned with the Left — have adopted a soft line on the fundamentalist right-wing. The swing is all too obvious, but not surprisingly, it does not come in for much criticism — how can the media criticise itself?
It’s also interesting to see how deep the suspicion goes. At the World Book Fair recently, in a panel on freedom of expression, an audience member who was on the side of freedom of expression had this to say: why, he asked, must westerners who do not know much about our civilisation and religion, have the right to speak about it? In his case, it wasn’t religious sentiment that was ‘hurt’ but a sense of nationalism. So here’s another layer that we have to deal with.
But more than anything else, the Doniger-Penguin case has reminded us of the imminent danger of losing even the relatively restricted freedom of expression that we do have in India — earlier largely restricted by the State, and now increasingly restricted by non-State actors with the State remaining a passive onlooker. There is no doubt that the fear of violence and disruption is real, but in many ways, it is no more real than the random violence we face every day on the streets, in homes, in workplaces. If we can deal with that, and on occasion even hope to get positive judgments that strengthen our struggle, why can’t we deal with this?
As long ago as 1957, the editor of a magazine called Gaurakshak challenged the constitutional validity of article 295A — one of the articles that has been invoked in the Doniger case — claiming that it infringed his right to freedom of expression, guaranteed by the Indian Constitution. While we may or may not agree with the ideas expressed in Gaurakshak , it is both necessary and important that all publishers put their weight behind defending the right to freedom of expression. No doubt there will be obstacles along the way but such battles have never been easy. What’s important is they have to be fought.
URVASHI BUTALIA is an editor, publisher and the director of Zubaan