Dear Suzarin raises some important on-the-spot
comments about the changing climate in India.
It is a groundswell reaction to dissatisfaction with
the ways things have not been going well in India.
Thus, Congress has lost the people's confidence --
as have the old concepts of Gandhi/Nehru based on
building a "civilized" India on the foundations set
in the British rule.
I think much more discussion about this is essential
to understanding India ahead. It is a rejection of
what had been the founding ideas -- never a mark of
stability in a nation the size of India. Size and
incredible diversity really mark what others have
preferred to see: a fantasy meme of a monolithic
people.
Size prevents a modicum of order and civility as
barely contained rage from overcrowdedness
imperils order. One simply can't find "space" in
public space to achieve calm and escape crowds
-- thus, isolation becomes a mark of status and
wealth enabling order and calm in one's private
isolation space. But what do the billion+ others do?
Diversity is now an increasingly burdensome mark
of the reality of India despite a long history of
public education instilling whatever the accepted
homogenized group-illusion of India has developed.
Thus, identity-formations exist among many sub-
groups creating a rash of parties emphasizing
whatever their base seeks. This inhibits unity and
an acceptable national group-illusion.
Indeed, frustrated younger elements turn to chaos
and fomenting troubles for the larger national
group because of this. Large political parties find
themselves broadening their message to
accommodate the sub-groups within and this
waters down their impact and acceptability to
others. One simply can't be all things to all sub-
groups and remain a viable message in a huge and
very diverse group. Simpler, all-embracing virtues/
values need to become the messages sold by large
parties.
The turn away from what was also means a turn to
a nationalist Hindu fantasy embodied in one party
and leader. How this will turn out for India is
anyone's guess but it will definitely bring a rise in
influence of the puritanical. Thus, this change is so
far turning more to cleansing India than marrying
the sub-groups. It is "exclusivity" rather than
"inclusivity" -- a nasty turn and certainly one where
hates are turned into allowed rage by Indian laws.
Suzarin is wrong, however, in denying "banned" as
the correct expression for what is taking place (with
Doniger's book and many other elements of life there).
That Penguin chose a business decision rather than
intellectual reality is a mark of the savaging of what
had been India's real past for a revisionist meme
hardly in keeping with the greatness that was. True,
the settlement eliminated the "banning" but it was
really a caving in to "banning".
Suzarin is fully correct, however, in everything else.
This is a dangerous turn for India, it will gain little
more than hatred unleashed, violence nascent, anger
for a nation that needs tolerance and inclusivity. India
will be wasting its vast intellectual/cultural heritage
in the pursuit of unleashed angers and repression in a
regressive regime. Things do not bode well. Mark's
other illustration of this shows the spreading nature
of this passionate "exclusivity". J ATLAS]
My response:
I agree that the effect of Penguin India’s out of court
settlement with the petitioners is the same as banning. But in India, a
distinction is usually made between challenging and banning. Banning has to be
by the government, with or without a court order.
Doniger’s book was only challenged by a retired school
teacher and five others in a civil suit filed before one of the Additional
District Judges in New Delhi in 2011. They had also registered two criminal
complaints before a police station in New Delhi in 2010 and 2013.
But on February 4, Penguin agreed to withdraw all the
copies of the book from India within a period of six months. On February 10,
the court accepted the agreement and dismissed the suit as withdrawn. Following
that, the two criminal complaints also stood withdrawn.
Wikipedia has a list of the books ‘banned’ and the books ‘challenged
but not banned’ in India till date. Please see the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_in_India
Some of the books on the list may really surprise you.
I also agree with the detailed observations about what is
looming over contemporary India, threatening its very survival as a single state.
But history seldom follows predictions! One factor that might change the course
for the better is a movement, nascent though, led by Arvind Kejriwal. India
watchers may take note of the name.
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