Is Withdrawing Or Banning A Book The Solution?
By A Special Correspondent
First publised on 2020-08-23 12:58:27
About the Author
In an unprecedented and controversial decision, Bloomsbury India, (the parent Bloomsbury are the publishers of J K Rowling's Harry Potter series), has announced that that it is withdrawing the publication of the book 'Delhi Riots 2020: The Untold Story' as the authors announced a virtual pre-launch event without its permission and invited people who the publishers would not have approved. The book was ready for a September release.
The book is co-authored by Monika Arora, Prerna Malhotra and Sonali Chitalkar. It is purported to be a 'factual' reconstruction of how the riots took place and what happened during the time, based on investigations and interviews conducted by the authors. Bloomsbury was ostensibly offended that the authors had invited the tainted BJP leader Kapil Mishra whose hate speeches were alleged to have triggered the riots as the guest of honour for the pre-launch event. But it appears that it developed cold feet at the last moment and thought it wiser not to do a Facebook by pandering to the ruling dispensation. Is also appear that it buckled under the pressure of Left-leaning and liberal intellectuals.
Whatever the reason for the withdrawal of publication, it shows Bloomsbury in a very bad light. A book is not approved for publication overnight. It goes through a grinding approval process initially and editorial intervention at all stages of writing. If Bloomsbury was not sure that what was being written in the book was true or met its editorial policies, it should not have accepted it for publication. It could have canceled the contract anytime during the submission process citing editorial policy. That the book was almost ready for release shows that the editorial protocols of Bloomsbury were not violated. The final decision was due to some extraneous reasons.
A publisher not accepting a book for publication is completely different from withdrawing a book when it is ready for release. The latter amounts to a ban (which is but a form of censorship) and cannot be condoned. Whatever the contents of the book (and given the 'luminaries' who attended the virtual event, it must be an attempt to exonerate the ruling party leaders accused of fanning the flames), a given point of view is not best countered by suppressing it but by providing a contrary point of view. Readers, listeners and viewers are the best judges and should be allowed to form their own opinion. In any case, if the book falls foul of the law, the courts can always prescribe corrective measures.
The decision has sparked all kinds of extreme reactions on social media. Aatish Taseer, the journalist whose OCI status was withdrawn by the government after he published an article critical of Prime Minister Modi, has thanked author William Dalrymple for helping in stopping the publication of what he called a "shameful bit of state propaganda". On the other hand, Anurag Kashyap, whose film Paanch was banned, tweeted that "banning and withdrawing is not the solution in a healthy democracy". Several authors have also announced their decision of never publishing with Bloomsbury.
