PenguinIndia and The Deconstruction

A worried debate is taking place all across India because of PenguinIndia’s withdrawal and pulping of the acclaimed Jewish scholar Wendy Doniger’s book, The Hindus.

That withdrawal was because of the pressure (including perhaps the threat of violence – at least, so it is hinted by some people involved in the debate) on the part of an apparently tiny organisation, Shiksha Bachao Andolan Committee, which had also taken PenguinIndia to court for “hurting the sentiments” of Hindus.

Unfortunately, India has no objective mechanism for determining whether the “sentiments” of any group of Indians have in fact been hurt, let alone the sentiments of a group as diverse as Hindus.

The question being raised by PenguinIndia’s action is that while we won Azaadi (Independence) for our country by an incredible display of moral force, are we losing our azaadi (freedom) to forces which would pulp freedom itself?

Among other worrying developments:

• The Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, which had one of our best historical archives, was sacked.
• The Jaipur Literary Festival was compelled to cancel a live video link with the Booker Prize winning author, Salman Rushdie.
• M. F. Husain, one of India’s most reputed painters, felt he had no alternative but to abandon India