Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Protecting literary freedom' that was published in Newsband

Protecting literary freedom

Literary freedom needs to be protected especially in democratic countries. In recent times, there has been several attempts to get books withdrawn, pulped or sanitised of offending content. The victims were Wendy Doniger’s The Hindus: An Alternative History, A.K. Ramanujan’s essay ‘Three Hundred Ramayanas’, and Tamil writer Perumal Murugan’s Madhorubagan (One Part Woman).

Shashi Tharoor, Congress MP and writer, has introduced a private member’s Bill in the Lok Sabha seeking to protect freedom of literature. As per the Bill, the authors must be guaranteed the freedom to express their work without fear of punitive action by the State or by sections of society.

Section 295A is a grossly misused section, often invoked in trivial ways to hound individuals, harass writers and curtail free expression. It deserves to be scrapped. Section 153A punishes those who promote enmity between groups on grounds of religion, race or language. Section 153B criminalises words and imputations prejudicial to national integration. Considering all these things, Tharoor’s initiative is most welcome.

Salman Rushdie's novel was banned. Tasleema was forced out of India. Congress was party to it. Tasleema was hounded by India's "secularist" stalwarts in West Bengal. The physical violence Tasleema had to undergo in Hyderabad was something that needed to be condemned.  

Freedom of expression should not be misinterpreted as irresponsible way of writing gives vent to feelings and impulses without contemplation like spontaneous overflow of emotions which would find justification as," I write for myself and for nobody else".

A man with clear vision in political life and a miscalculated way in personal life is clearly indicated the best approach to maintain the literary freedom in public life. The religious enmity way should be scrapped at any cost. But in reality, the irreligious sentiment is motivated in all walks of our life.

The literary freedom has been put to pressure on the ground that free write ups in that sphere disturbs religious harmony or hurts the feeling of a group and the like. Hence Tharoor’s individual bill which invoke such freedom is welcome. At the same time the writer must avoid intentional write up causing the boilings of group or individual and disturbs harmony.