This is how it happened

Ever wonder how a news TV crew managed to get two politicians of Maharashtra, India talking about how they gathered money for Sonia Gandhi's rally in Sewagram this week?

They did it because the two - Maharashtra Congress unit chief Manikrao Thakre and former minister Satish Chaturvedi were foolish enough to talk their private thoughts five feet from the TV cameras being set up and the microphones arrayed for a press conference.

The duo spoke how each cabinet minister was asked to cough up Rs 10 lakh apiece, how one of them gave only half of that and how the chief minister Ashok Chavan fell in line and conceded Rs 2 cr to pay for buses to ferry audiences to the rally. For more, read what I wrote on this - the how part by clicking on this link:

http://thehoot.org/web/home/story.php?storyid=4871&mod=1&pg=1&sectionId=14&valid=true

You would now know that the news channel got quite some juicy stuff without having to do an elaborate sting. The sting is a strict no-no to many journalists but here these guys just invited themselves to be massacred by the media by keeping their guard down.

Fears coming true!

My fears about the Shiv Sena launching a larger campaign against Rohinton Mistry's Such a long journey seems to be coming true. The Shiv Sena has said that it is a book not fit enough to be taught in any university course but only good enough to be sold at railway stations. One hopes that it stops there and does not get foolishly raucous and into street actions, a la the campaign againt the movie, Fire.

However, one must concede a point - if we fault the Sena for this attitude, how can one digest the high decibel protest by Congress spokespersons like Manu Abhishekh Singhvi threatened legal action against Javier Moro for his Red Saree, an unauthorised tale of the Nehru-Indira family as told through Sonia Gandhi? The intelligentsia did not make much fuss.

There cannot be two ways of looking about it. We cannot be ambivalent about freedoms.

It does not however mean we accept the Sena's view point. Far from it.

But one ought to appreciate the single-minded reportage of the Mumbai Mirror, about which thehoot.org, a media website and I took note of. The press woke up to the issue but in a desultory manner, is at it.

Get the book back in curriculum! Somehow!!

Last week, I had voiced my serious misgivings about the way Rohinto Minstry's Such a long journey was taken off the Mumbai University's curriculum but I find that the issue is gathering steam. I thought it fit to give a wider audience for that issue and wrote about it in my fortnightly column on www.rediff.com, where it appears once a fortnight.

However, the media, save the Mumbai Mirror, by and large has given the issue a miss though this particular newspaper, after breaking the story on October 2, 2010 - mark the irony, on the day linked to Mahatma Gandhi, man who believed in freedoms - is persisting with the exposure, the latest one being today, October 13, 2010 where it asked the Vice Chancellor, Dr Rajan Welukar three questions.

I share Mirror's scepticism: Dr Welukar would remain quite, playing possum, hoping it would blow over. It would be nice to see this storm developing into a full scale demonstration against thoughtless, mindless mania of proscribing anything one individual or a group dislikes.

Let us see what unfolds as the days roll on. Will the Chief Minister, Ashok Chavan act and breach the sham veil of autonomy of the university and have the book restored? It has less to do with quality et al but more to do with freedom and procedure not yielding to goons because they feel it is bad medicine to have it on the syllabus.

More about banned books

Now that Rohinton Minstry's Such a long journey has been dropped without much ado by the University of Mumbai, would that day be far away when the Shiv Sena, to which Aditya Thackeray has filial links and is to launch a new youth wing with his grandfather's blesings in the next few days, demand that the book stores cease stocking and selling it?

I would not be surprised if that is the first agenda of the proposed Yuva Sena. But I do hope it would not be for in India, the list of books either restricted because of mob fury or proscribed because of the government's lack of intellectual strength, is only growing. If books get banned, then what happens to the researchers of the future? Where would they look for them for references?

When the Supreme Court of India recently ruled that James Laine's work on Shivaji, The Hindu king in Mughal India (Oxford University Press) was to be allowed to be stocked and sold, it did not translate into their reappearance on the book stores. I tried in Hyderabad. I looked for it in Bangalore but no, the book stores said, they had been advised that the publishers may send it to them but it has not happened. It is not banned now, but it is now available.

This issue of the value of a banned book did crop up at The Asiatic Society of Mumbai recently but a resolution that the society "institute a reference section of banned books where the same will be available to researchers for reference" did not pass muster. It was sensible thing to do but then Society is trammelled by the fact that it secures state funding. And a banned book, if retained, is illegal. The Managing Committee's comment in the agenda papers was, 'Stocking of 'banned' books is illegal and the Society may land in trouble if such books are purchased, lent for reading or kept for browsing, even for research purposes".

That is sad. If I know its head, Dr Aroon Tikekar, a scholar, researcher, and writer is a person who does not like proscribing books for it is an assault on freedom to think. But apparently the legal compulsions seem to be superseding any intent to ensure the availability of such books. I wonder if it were possible to scan and upload such books on the Internet so that access becomes possible? Individuals with the means to do so ought to be coming forward. I appeal to such persons to step forward.

Just for those why may have missed it, here is a report from the Times of India which my friend Ambarish Mishra wrote just prior to the debate at the Asiatic:

Mumbai: A two-line resolution demanding that the library of the Asiatic Society of Mumbai should stock books that have been banned by the government over the years has triggered a fresh debate on censorship and the states role in it.

The resolution will come up for discussion at the Societys general body meeting on Saturday.

The Society was flagged off in 1804 and is a treasure-trove of rare books,manuscripts and coins.Activist and Malayalam writer K Haridas,a senior member of the Society,who moved the resolution,said, "Those in power ban books right,left and centre and,that too,on extraneous grounds.Owing to that,researchers and scholars are often deprived of rich study material. So,these prohibited books should be stocked in library but the Society should frame stringent rules to avoid their wrongful use". The resolution has been seconded by another member and scholar,M V Kumar.

However,in its comment on the resolution,the Societys managing committee warned that stocking banned books might mean flouting of statutory rules.Keeping prohibited books in the library is patently illegal, said society president Aroon Tikekar.Elaborating on the point,he added,The Society cannot violate the law of the land.Moreover,what if a researcher who is given access to a banned book misuses or distorts information. Should this happen,the Society will have to bear the brunt as it happened in the James Laine case.The hooligans went on the rampage at Punes Bhandarkar research institute.

Haridas has suggested a way out.The Society should write to the Central as well as the Maharashtra government,seeking exemption for the books that have been banned.Given the Societys fame as one of the most illustrious institutions of learning and scholarship of the country,I am sure the government will take a generous view of it, Haridas said.

Many members will also share scholar and cineaste Veerchand Dharamseys concern.The problem is that the Asiatic Society has no proper rules.Who is to decide the credentials of a scholar Tomorrow,anyone may walk in and ask for the copy of a prohibited book as there are no sharp guidelines on this issue, said Dharamsey.

Marathi literateur Ashok Shahane,another senior member,said it should go ahead and adopt the resolution without worrying about possible cases of vandalism.Vandalism is the home departments worry.Put the ball in the court of the police.They should tackle the hooligans, he added.

Pointing out that the British Museum stocks banned books,Shahane said the Asiatic Society has survived many regimes,including the British Raj.Knowledge outlives politics.We should not allow politicians to encroach on the republic of knowledge.Dr Tikekar,too,agreed that banning books is ethically wrong.Knowledge has no barriers and it is timeless."

Yet again, intolerance

On October 2, 2010 the MUMBAI MIRROR described the success of Adiyta Thackeray's success in getting Rohinton Mistry's Such a long journey dropped from the English Syllabus of Mumbai University's second year BA course. The Vice Chancellor Rajan Welukar just acted to the demand without much ado - in fact, without a whimper. And the tragic thing is that not a single voice has been raised in protest.

And mind you, Aditya Thackeray, grandson of the Shiv Sena's founder and son of Uddhav Thackeray is himself all set to enter politics with the launch of the Yuva Sena, the youth wing which is apparently distinct from the Vidhyarti Sena of which nothing much is heard from its leader Raj quit the party. One expected that being modern, educated, and young, he would be more tolerant to the not so favourable references to the Shiv Sena in Mistry's work. That is a disappointment for intolerance is being carried to the third generation. His great grandfather, generally referred to as Prabhodhankar was a progressive.

My lament is less about the blood and DNA being stronger in the Thackeray family than ideas are. My anguish is about the willingness to accept intolerance without even batting an eye. Ambedkar's Riddles in Hinduism, then Salman Rushdie's book, and yet again, James Laine's Shivaji: Hindu King in a Mughal India have all been proscribed not because of any scholarly objections but by the unthinking leaders of political parties who have a gallery to play to, not lead the country into a new era where critique becomes essence of democracy. There was that film Fire, if you recall which was victim of mob fury.

Adiyta is a poet, and I am sure within the family, there would have been some celebration at the manner in which he secured compliance. he has drawn the first blood using intolerance. Tomorrow's dictator is thus born.

This decision to excise Mistry's book mid-term, even after the test papers have been set for the course, is a sad reflection of the university's leadership. This supine compliance by Welukar even before the world debated the demand shows that the university is not going in the right direction. He was the first to be picked by a rigorous selection method to ensure the university's academic progress; this first milestone is a negative, surely.

Other segments of the media did not react at all to the news item on the front page of the Mumbai Mirror and only person who argued against such tendencies, again only in the Mirror the next day was Aroon Tikekar who pointedly said that "timidity has no room in academics". The silence by others is ominous and distressing.

The point I would like to make is that Welukar is differently positioned that the government's executive and he has no political compulsions to ride to keep the university going. He is the custodian of the university's autonomy. If he had had the Academic Council review the syllabus and found that Mistry's fiction was not worth being in the syllabus, it would have been different. No such review of syllabus is periodically rigorously carried out.

Not acceptable.

B G Verghese

This has to be told; it could mean something to the newspapers of these days. I know the television, given its DNA, would not give a damn about the sage counsel from B G Verghese, the doyen of responsible journalism.

It was 1972 winter and as students of journalism from Osmania University, we called on B G Verghese, then the editor of Hindustan Times in his office. He talked to us in his soft tones about what the game of journalism was all about. And then came to the point.

"You would have been taught about the need to answer the W's and H when writing a news story. The what, where, when, why, who and how. But after these are answered, ask one more question: so what?"

"Once you ask and respond to that, half the muck that appears in the newspapers would disappear. People would get something useful to read because more space would open up for better stuff."

That guided my journalism for three decades and more. I try to tell younger ones when I get to mentor them but newspapers don't much care for that; it is visible when you turn the pages. Information which titillates, not inform. For instance, if a new bus service is introduced, the newspapers don't tell you about the actual route, the frequency, the timings. Not reader-friendly at all.

Now Verghese has written a book but it is likely to be autobiographical, in is impeccable English, toungue firmly in cheek, subtle humour. A friend's blog has a piece by another journalist, TJS George on the gentleman-journalist which I'd like to share. Here is the tribute to the man who has a deep mind with a straight face and stands tall.

You can't find such journalists these days.