Mihir S Sharma: Cultural straitjackets

India's penal code, written by occupiers in the aftermath of a devastating revolt that was more, perhaps, about cultural imperialism than the political kind, is increasingly shown to be a thing of its time, one increasingly distant from ours. Section 377 is out of phase with an age that understands sexual freedom is an essential part of personal freedom. But Section 295A, which criminalises speech that offends religion, has nowhere near as much notoriety.

It should, perhaps. The recent withdrawal by Penguin India of an "alternative history" of Hindus and Hinduism by Professor Wendy Doniger demonstrates the degree to which the persistence of such laws on the statute book can have what is called a "chilling effect" - in which private parties control their own speech or that of others to comply with an all-encompassing law. In its much-delayed explanation for the withdrawal, the publishing house blamed Section 295A in particular, although the only immediate case on its hands was a civil, not a criminal, complaint. However, if the civil case was close to being lost, criminal charges might well have been filed soon - specific complaints are referred to in the annexure of the agreement that Penguin signed.

Much time has been wasted mis-allocating blame for the withdrawal of Professor Doniger's book. Yes, naturally the set of petitioners - obscurantist and fundamentalist voices led by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's point man on "education" - would like to see books banned. That isn't surprising. What did you expect? It's the RSS. They're not fans of alternative histories, unless they're the ones writing it. They are being true to themselves by objecting to it. Yes, naturally Penguin India eventually withdrew when faced with a determined opponent linked to a powerful family of social organisations that includes the party expected to rule this country next year. What did you expect? They are a private sector company whose responsibility is to their shareholders and duty is to maximise profits. Which shareholder wants to see cash bleed into legally defending an asset that is depreciating fast, like a four-year-old hardback? And spare me the self-righteous claptrap about the "commodification" of books and knowledge. If you don't want writing commodified, then don't sign a contract with a profit-maximising company. Release it, for free, on the Internet. Penguin India, too, is being true to itself by withdrawing.

The blame rightly belongs, as always, to what shapes such people's decisions: the law. In this case, the law empowered the objectors and disempowered those who did not - Penguin, the author, and her potential readers. In that absence, it is a bit much to high-handedly demand a firm we don't own to take on the costs of working to change or defy the law. If enough of us care enough, perhaps there is a special market for "books that can be legally challenged", and we should pay a litigation premium for them over and above the regular price - intellectual blood money, paying for our access to possibly forbidden thought.

Or, perhaps, we should just focus on changing the law. Like much else in the Indian Penal Code, Section 295A is a defacement of India's claim to being a modern, liberal culture. There are other such - most of all, perhaps, the First Amendment to the Constitution that unnecessarily and dangerously restricted free-speech provisions. But amending the Constitution is harder than changing the penal code. That, at first, should be the focus of all those who are outraged.

Laws that put culture in a straitjacket do not deserve to survive. For there are always those who will take advantage of such provisions, to use state power to quench dissent. It is intriguing, after all, to examine the complaints of those who think Professor Doniger's book is a fit target for their ire, and are choosing to fire over the shoulders of an illiberal state. Irrespective of the merits of Professor Doniger's book - which I encourage you to judge for yourself - it is worth examining, for clues to the culture spawned by such laws, the nature of the anger at her project. Professor Doniger wishes, she claims, to give voice to the many different forms of Hindu practice, a dazzling and bewildering variety that nevertheless manage, in their myriad manifestations, to be recognisably Hindu. The strength of the religion lies in its ability to be different and yet compelling for any number of different people - be they Dalit or transgendered, recent converts or vague cultural legatees. This very feature of the religion is a bug to those who despise Professor Doniger; for them, any diversion from the pseudo-Abrahamic, Brahminical narrative they espouse is dangerous. Laws that control speech and culture will be used, always, by those with greater power - the guardians of what historian Vijay Prashad calls the "bourgeois" manifestation of religion, in this case - to minimise challenges to their authority. There is no free culture without free speech. There is no free religion without free speech. Laws that stifle speech in order to "protect" religion in fact do the precise opposite.

mihir.sharma@bsmail.in

Originally posted here:
Mihir S Sharma: Cultural straitjackets