South Asia Citizens Web

We are shocked and shamed by the abrupt withdrawal of the Rohinton Mistry novel Such a Long Journey from the English Literature syllabus of the University of Bombay, on an order from the Vice Chancellor, following an explicit threat from the newly anointed youth leader of the Shiv Sena. This blatant capitulation to the threat of mob violence is a serious assault on the autonomy of our academic institutions and should be condemned by all who stand by basic democratic values.

The Shiv Sena’s student wing complains to the Vice-Chancellor of Mumbai University that it is offended by the novel Such a Long Journey. Copies are burnt at the University gates. Needless to say, no one has actually read the book. The mob leader, speaking in Hindi to a television camera, says: The author is lucky he lives in Canada—if he were here, we would burn him as well. The mob demands the book’s removal within twenty-four hours, from the syllabus. The good Vice-Chancellor obliges the mob.
In this sorry spectacle of book-burning and book-banning, the Shiv Sena has followed its depressingly familiar, tediously predictable script of threats and intimidation that Mumbai has endured since the organisation’s founding in 1966. But it is the expeditious decision by Mumbai University which causes profound dismay.

Two recent incidents have once again highlighted the bullying tactics of the Shiv Sena, to which established authorities appear to have no answer. First, the banning of Rohinton Mistry’s book, Such a Long Journey, from the English literature syllabus of Mumbai University; and secondly, the intimidation of producers of Bigg Boss, the TV reality show, for featuring Pakistani artistes.

The Ayodhya judgment of the Allahabad High Court has relied on a Report, submitted to the High Court in 2003, by the Archaeological Survey of India after its excavations on the site, as ordered by the Court. As citizens of India, or persons of Indian origin, or friends of India, we demand that this Report should be published forthwith and be available for scrutiny in the public domain, especially to scholars, as it is now a part of the public judicial record.

I write to you with deep concern at the manner in which Shri Rohinton Mistry’s novel Such a Long Journey has been summarily removed from the syllabus of the University of Mumbai.

I’m sure I don’t need to remind any you that we as a country and as a society are still paying the price of another such peremptory banning of a novel by another distinguished Bombayite — The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie — twenty - odd years ago.