by Priya Gopal
[box]Priya Gopal laments the abysmal levels of censorship in our country and wonders what our kids will turn into if we encourage them to only see, hear, speak and think as we want them to.[/box]We are serious, we are opinionated, we want only one idea and one perspective and yes, we don’t like to laugh at ourselves. We are India.
The National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) recently deleted cartoons from its textbooks which it felt were politically insensitive. Did the biggest educational body of our country not realise that before the books got published four years ago? Oh, wait – it’s not that the NCERT suddenly came to its ‘senses’. The action was a result of protests from certain powerful sections of the society who lacked the sprit to laugh at themselves.
Let’s travel back in time. The year is 1988. Rajiv Gandhi, the then prime minister of India, was under severe criticism for his involvement in the Bofors Scandal. Feeling the heat of the media revelations, Mr. Gandhi sought to get the Anti-Defamation Bill passed in the parliament. This bill sought to create ‘new’ offences, and the media would have to be very careful of what they said because now every statement could be interpreted in a way that could be held against them. Nationwide protests against the bill ensured that it was not passed, but the media was still under the attack of the politician. Foreign journalists who were investigating the Bofors scandal were not given visas to enter the country.
India’s intolerance extends to art and artists too, with a number ofbooks and authors being banned in India. Salman Rushdie’s ‘Satanic Verses’ to Joseph Lelyveld’s ‘ The Great Soul’, a book that claims to expose Gandhiji’s sexual life and his racist views, are banned either nationwide or in certain states. ‘Nine Hours to Rama’ by Stanley Wolpert is banned as it exposes the lack of security given to Gandhiji the day he was assassinated. Salman Rushdie was not granted a visa to attend the Jaipur Literature Festival. M.F.Hussain died outside of India as the Indians wouldn’t tolerate his art and didn’t want him here.
The electronic media too has not escaped the censor’s scissors.Time and again directors are asked to make changes in their movies. Movies like ‘Fire’ and ‘Water’ by Deepa Mehta are banned due to their controversial topics. The National Award-winning movie ‘The Dirty Picture’ cannot be shown on television because it has what the government believes is ‘adult content’. Internet giant, Google, has revealed in its transparency report released in June 2012 that it received 101 requests from Indian authorities to delete 255 items from its content. This marks a sharp rise of 49% fromthe second half of last year. Authorities feel that some of the sensitive content posted online puts national security at risk and needs to be removed.
Innumerable instances such as these force us to think: where are we heading? Or, at times: where are we coming from?
Why is there so much censorship in India? Why doesn’t the government want our kids to think, discuss and argue about the political situations that arose in history? Why do we believe that something doesn’t exist if we can’t see it?
I believe this attitude comes from our history. The Aryans who settled in India brought in the Varna system. This system divided the society into four castes. These castes couldn’t intermingle with each other. They had a pecking order just like the animal world did. The vedas were the prerogative of the Brahmans. The military skills had only to be with theKshatriyas.We all know what happened to Ekalavya and Karna. Withholding information from other people meant power, control and supreme authority. Power play isn’t original to the T20 matches; our gods had begun it a very long time back. Devdutt Pattanaik has analysed the story of Bahubali, brother of celebrated king Bharata, and elaborated very clearly how the instinct to dominate is so strong that even people who renounce the world take pride in the fact that the rest of the world bows to them. Power play and censorship exist even at very individual levels. Parents of adult children decide careers and life partners for them. In many families finances are not personal but part of a bigger kitty. Adults do not have the right to take decisions. The Khaps in Haryana will not let young people decide whom to marry. They have gone to the extent of banning mobile phones for people below the age of 40!
And it is from this power play that the urge to censor stems. As the major educational body of the country, instead of standing up and questioning why the cartoons that never rankled in the ages of their publication should be deleted, the NCERT succumbed to the power of the ‘other’ forces and removed them. When loopholes in our systems are pointed out in the media, as a nation do we have the guts to say that we erred? Oh no! We try to dumb down the voices. We ban a ‘Nine Hours to Rama’ because the author dared to show this country that we lost the Father of our Nation due to our own lack of security systems. But we don’t want to listen to these voices. The governments think that the matter is sorted out by banning the book. Generations grow up seeing and learning only what is portrayed to them. It is said that history is always the story of the winner; history, I believe, is always the story of the censor. What students are taught to believe is our history, what they grow to feel proud of, what is taught time and again in our classrooms, is sadly the perspective of the government and people in power. Politicians, past or present, have always tried to stifle voices. Aditya Thackeray, the rising star leader of the Shiv Sena in Mumbai demanded that the University of Mumbai ban Rohinton Mistry’s 1990 Booker-nominated novel ‘Such a Long Journey.’ The demand came after certain sections of the party brought it to his notice that the novel made some anti-Shiv Sena references. What shocked most was that the University obliged the very next day! When institutes of higher education pander to the demands of political fledglings, it is time for us to fear. We need to fear the future we are handing over to our children. As a teacher I have constantly motivated my students to think for themselves. But when they go out in the world, out of the cocoons of a classroom, does anybody care for their voice of dissent? When we don’t teach our kids to think and act but want them to solely follow what we are trying to indoctrinate, isn’t there something seriously wrong? The resignations of Prof.Suhas Palshikar and Prof.Yogendra Yadav from their positions as advisors to NCERT after this incident indicate a loud and clear YES to that question.
Our constitution states that we are a democratic country and one of the fundamental rights of a citizen is the right to free speech. Oh yes! We truly are a democratic country. We are full of honourable people! We truly believe that if the younger generation sees, hears and speaks what we want them to, then we will surely create a shining India in the future.
How long will we hear nothing, see nothing and speak nothing?
Priya Gopal is the Section Head (CBSE) at the Curriculum Department of Kangaroo Kids Education Ltd., Mumbai. An educator by choice, teaching and interacting with kids is something that has enthused her over the last 16 years. Priya lives in Mumbai with her husband and two children. She blogs at http://keepsmilinginlife.blogspot.com
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