Banning books is like banning the right to breathe. It never works. Here’s why!

India’s Jammu and Kashmir has banned 25 books for allegedly ‘promoting secessionism and a false narrative,’ about the alleged human rights atrocities committed in the disputed region. Manoj Sinha, the Lieutenant Governor of the Union Territory issued the order which banned prominent books by historians and academics. The most famous of the banned books isAzadi, by Arundhati Roy which includes essays about thousands of people allegedly killed by the Indian armed forces during conflict. The ban also includes Colonizing Kashmir: State-building Under Indian Occupationby the US-based academic Hafsa Kanjwal and Contested Lands: Israel-Palestine, Kashmir, Bosnia, Cyprus and Sri Lankaby Sumantra Bose.

This has prompted raids of bookstores across the region to cease the banned books. The irony is that throughout history, banning a book has put the spotlight on it and granted it more readership than ever before.

A Brief Historical Perspective

Many beloved books were banned at some point of time. The english version of the Biblewas banned by the Roman Catholic Church in 1524, as it was claimed that the text should only be read in Latin.

Similarly, Shakespeare’s Richard IIwas banned in 1597, as it contained a scene in which the monarch is deposed from his throne, inviting the ire of Queen Elisabeth I.

More recently and famously, Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verseswas banned in 1988, as Islamic clerics declared it blasphemous and copies of it were widely burnt throughout the world, including in India. Oddly, the much loved Harry Potterseries by JK Rowling also came under fire in 2019 as some people demanded that it contained mentions of witchcraft and occult practices and thus should be banned. The war against people’s right to read has been a long and global one. But it is fraught with many in-your-face ironies.

Tempting Taboos

Books, once banned, become taboo and forbidden fruit and much like Adam, readers are often compelled to read these texts to see what blasphemies they hold. The Satanic Verses, once it was unbanned in India, saw people queuing up at bookstores to get a copy.

More importantly, book bans might have worked in the pre-internet era. But in this digital age, nothing is truly ever banned. Books are easily pirated and downloaded off the Internet and can be read on smartphones and laptops without the country or government ever coming to know. Book bans create interest in often ordinary and previously un-noteworthy works and thus the blasphemy and seditious content finds a wider readership after the banning.

Political Overtones

Just like the Kashmir book ban, banning of literature has always had political reasons. Such A Long Journeyby Rohinton Mistry was withdrawn from the University of Mumbai’s syllabus after politician Adtiya Thackeray claimed that the books demeaned his grandfather Balasaheb Thackeray and the Marathi culture as a whole. Similarly, India Independentby Charles Bettelheim was banned in 1976 by the Indira Gandhi government for criticising the ruling party’s policies post India’s independence. Sometimes, even business interests seem to justify banning. In 1988, The Polyester Prince by Hamish McDonald was banned for allegedly being a ‘shoddy’ biography of business tycoon Dhirubai Ambani, the father of Asia’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani.

Don’t go down the Raj way

During British rule, many books, now central to India’s freedom struggle, were banned. The Indian Struggleby Subhash Chandra Bose and Hind Swarajby our father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi, were banned as being seditious. This created quite a stir then and governments of today would do well to understand how sedition then and sedition now is essentially the same, a muzzling of contrary opinions and a silencing of dissenting voices. The right to read must be central to our society and culture. Dissenting and differing voices must be heard to avoid the creation of sycophantic echo chambers. The act of banning books, however controversial they may be, is similar to banning mirrors just because we don’t like our own faces.