[Reader-list] Taslima & book

[Mrityunjoy Chatterjee]

Dear all,

I was reading an interview [Aajkaal, 9th December, 2003, Calcutta] with a 
famous Bengali author Sunil Ganguli regarding the Taslima Nasrin's book. 
Though I am not convinced by his arguments but I am curious to know few 
things. He talks of an event in Bangalor few years back, where 11 people 
were killed in a riot on a story called "Mohammed, the stupid". Thus he 
justifies the ban as a way to prevent the violence. And he claims that 
there were information about growing anger within Muslim community in 
Calcutta, specially Taslima's book came during Ramzan. So by banning the 
book state prevented the possible violence.

I am trying to unpack this illustration in parts. Here is an author who 
uses objectionable words about some one or a group of people. And there is 
a possibility of violence due to the words and there are examples in past 
of such cases. There are possible instigating agencies that can benefit 
from violence, inside or outside state.

There is no public domain or space for commons to take collective 
decisions. Decisions are structurally taken by representatives. I am just 
curious to know, what can be other possible methods to restrain the author 
or the consequences? Even after banning the book riot might happen or it 
might rather instigate. So I am not convinced by Sunil's argument.

One more question, when we talk about freedom of expression against any 
form of physical violence don't we forget to think about violence of 
gestures, language, attitude etc. which comes broadly under forms of 
expression?

Best
Joy