[Reader-list] Editing as censorship: The Response begins 1

[ARNAB CHATTERJEE]

Dear  Shuddha,  SARAI readers and writers,
                                                      
                       Welcome back to the debate
concerning open and explicit censorship and implicit
and hidden ones legitimized through the door of
necessity (there are more than one or two).
Shuddhabrata Sengupta ( though Attreye Majumdar agreed
with me, Raheema Begum and Anjalika Sagar will do so
after I finish) in a long answer denied to call this
censorship—the everyday ( privately controlled) media
tactic (among many others) where he himself
acknowledged ‘things are distorted beyond
recognition’, where content is raped in every orifice,
the mediocre form maneuvered by self declared,
salaried experts ( “bibhagiyo sampadak namer kichu
daroan”—Sandipan Chattopadhyaya) fly high in the
flattened air. (The audience seems to be wanting it or
asking for more-- he seems to be saying later).
                                    I will believe
Sandipan  and stick to the word daroan (
guard/security guard) used to describe  section
editors; now, what is the nature of this surveillance?
This is the question.  Before getting into the
details,  let me anticipate the conclusion I shall be
making: I’ll show theoretically ( and refrain from
making empirical references about which I have enough
evidence though) that not only  is this censorship, it
is something worse. Explicit governmental censorship
is a far more honest system; this one which parades
itself as having inspired authorial self censorship
(Shuddha celebrates this) is in tune with the new
techniques of power ( exercised through voluntary self
comportment) that Foucault charted so excellently. (My
negotiation with my censor degenerates into my
struggle with my own self and I’m adding this, the
supposedly ‘intelligent’ pragmatic self wins.) To
understand our own times we have to locate censor here
in this form.  We have to invoke all of these notions
to understand such a  phenomenon and stop not  at just
calling this force ‘oppressive’ as Shuddha does, since
as Foucault had argued, like many censored films have
become landmarks, private censorial activity also
grants paradoxical positivity, i.e.,  identity (
recall Freud’s use of the word censor).  But this is a
long and arduous task and I have been thinking of a
complete separate article on this and therefore trying
to stock-take references to be used once for all. This
has not been happening; lately I noticed I have been
missing out on many( my proud memory is fading,
finally) and therefore decided to take back the night
and call it a day. This will  therefore be  a  letter
in progress: bits and pieces of arguments, points and
references like scattered sand, fragment. And last of
all then, having incited some response, I’ll collect
all in recognition of their arguments and give it the
shape of a paper.            
                                Now, please notice
that one major argument underlies Shuddha’s refutation
of my proposal: governmental censorship is against the
author, private or civil  censorship is with the
author; governmental censorship is imposing and
obligatory, private censorship is processual and
voluntary, it has the consent of the author, it is the
author’s self censorship. Now this word self
censorship ( also used by Shuddha) as you see retains
the word censorship and in a way if not defeats,
precariously harms his purpose; but I’ll overlook this
technical moment of contradiction and speculate for it
a better chance : let us propose, Shuddha wants to
argue -- self censorship is not censorship. This is a
more promising path and I’ll surmise, Shuddha is
falling, despite his intentions, a victim to the
blindness that a modern capillary mode of power
regulates – where even the crudest form of 
intervention will seem, through this sieve,  an
exercise of free will. Shuddha’s ‘working with the
author’ is the high noon of this disciplinary
technique. ( Shobha De had argued similarly  for
Bollywood’s  casting couch syndrome as a fact of 
voluntary free giving at a promising site of mutual
exchange. ) Just imagine a real case and you can
recover many instances of this : the film censor board
says, you have to sacrifice this bed scene and you
find it foolish but comply; the editor rejects your
article without a reason ( because it’s too good?) or
‘distorts beyond recognition’, you are struck by his
brilliance, his  emotional management of expressive
difference, his pathology, and you oblige by thanking
him and giving him a kiss or two. The first one is
censorship because the board calls it by that name;
the second is not—it is editor’s prerogative and
institutional autonomy. But suppose the film censor
board changes its name : let us imagine it names
itself, FILM EDITING BOARD; now tell me wouldn’t its
activity be classified as censorship anymore? I hope
it does and if it does then the intelligent forum
which bears the name editing might be –in a very
possible manner—strike a censorious chord. Readers
might  argue, yes but the Board has stipulated rules
while the private media does not; I’ll say that’s a
reprieve where you have clear rules, you can still
argue or complain—even file a lawsuit, but where there
are  not, you are gone. It’s take it or leave it
situation. Infact Shobha De ended that article with
this famous phrase, “ Who’s complaining?” Truly,
nobody is and that’s the problem. 
              Let me clarify one thing here : Shuddha
and all others who share his view-important as it
is-are falling an unwilling victim to –what Foucault
called –the legal juridical view of sovereignty. Where
there are state institutions, legally cognizable rules
and power of coercion—we think  censorship resides
there; and where  these entities are absent, it is
not. I’ll urge you to begin with something where it is
NOT, and then only –dissatisfied with received
definitions—we’ll be able to chart new grounds. 
           So I’ll come to consent ( and address
also-- when  Shuddha took a step backward to call it
an apriori consent) and self censorship later; first
I’ll try to chart the progress of some thinkers in
relation to what I’ve said above; that is, first I’ll
make a space clearing gesture in that I’ll try to show
genealogically that my use of the word censorship in
the way I’m trying to use it ( some may smell an
exaggeration in that), is not anachronistic or odd but
has a justified genealogy. Let me begin with Kant and
in this post I’ll limit myself to him.

                                                      
  (1)

As many of you might be knowing Kant had fallen a
victim to censorship both ways : to the state as well
as the church. While state censorship today is
minimal, I’ll argue church censorship is retained in
the civil censorship of today. All media houses,
institutions can be seen as various churches.  But it
is interesting the way Kant formulates censorship, he
could have easily defined it as falling to kingly
edicts or church norms. But no, he defined censorship
as “a criticism which has coercive power”(1)  ( and
given Kant’s own view of the critical, it cannot be,
curiously dogmatic.) Later it is clear that Kant wants
to understand  censorship in  disciplinary terms. When
biblical theology thinks that philosophical theology
has crossed its bounds and has encroached its
boundaries, the biblical theologian tends to censor
it. (Kan’t own tryst with censorship and  argument for
rational theology to evade the censor of biblical
theologians   is irrelevant here; but  that he could
be held negatively within the stipulations of the
latter is an enough testimony to the presence of his
attempt .) Censorship then, in Kantian terms, is
itself the philosophy of a limit where a number of
obstacles seem to be struggling for expression. (
Note, this is a curious point,  obstacles looking for
their own freedom). And here Kant makes a hierarchy—of
faculties  seems not to argue against the independence
of faculties.


“ The government reserves the right itself to sanction
the teachings of the higher faculties, but those of
the lower faculty it leaves up to the scholar’s
reason. But even when the government sanctions
teachings, it does not itself teach; it requires only
that the respective faculties, in expounding a subject
publicly  adopt certain teachings and exclude their
contraries. For the government does not teach, but it
commands those who, in accepting its offices, have
contracted to teach what it wants ( whether this be
true or not).”(2) 

Now this is important, Kant makes this point again and
again that for the welfare of the general public ( not
“welfare of the sciences”), the state is well within
its right to put restrictions or censor. But this is
because, and this is important, the government is not
related to truth which could be pursued by a scholarly
seeker of the sciences, and more importantly by the
sciences themselves. And as you know elsewhere ( in
his now famous ‘What is enlightenment?’ ) Kant had
made a similar point : before your chosen public (
say, the scholar and his audience, the scientist and
his audience, the poet and his audience) and Kant
calls this private, you are free to criticize but in
public you must obey.  Freedom to pursue truth is a
private matter belonging to the faculties, the 
government with no claim to truth cannot allow you
such a freedom and function. But this search for truth
in unbounded private freedom, did it happen really?
Then why would we have such a good mind as
Shuddhabrata Sengupta arguing for autonomy of private
institutions to select, edit, change or  transform a
content  as it thinks so? This assertion has a
historic background. But this has become possible
because the private forum with its reading or viewing
or listening public  has transformed its relation to
truth itself. Please hold your breath now and follow
me here: Kant says Government sanctions or rejects
because it has no relation to truth; I’ll argue both
ways, anything that has no relation to truth sanctions
( or censors with criticism that  has coercive
power—in this sense it is the same as the government),
and anything that censors has no relation to truth.
And because no body believes that a newspaper or for
that matter a capitalist is bound to (publish) true
fact or opinion, it needs to censor;  I’ll say further
that  it has to. 
                                     Following Kant
then only unbounded seeking of truth (All hands and
hats off before truth!) that too along with a
specialized private audience need not be coerced and
censored or are not suited to the regulation of 
censorial agencies. But then when truth is  ‘distorted
beyond recognition’ to parade truth of its own kind., 
what is that? It is worse than censorship. Kant could
have given it a better name.
                      
                    But still, if you are censored in
one house, you can go to another-Shuddha seems to be
arguing somewhere. ( This is the  private contractual
freedom of a wage labourer as if, you are free to sell
your word power to anybody, but obey wherever  you go
( a reversal of Kant). And you go to another house and
they have their own scissors. Instead of one
censorious authority, you have numerous. This is the
pluralisation of the church today. You can still file
a case against state censor and win the case (Taslima
did win one) but tell me who has filed a case and won
it against our numerous civil censors?    

Censorship is everywhere because our relationship to
truth needs to be censored, always, everywhere.
 [To be continued]

[ I have left out Partha Chaterjee’s question he asked
in his ‘Our modernity’ as to why the Kantian use of
the private and public did not become popular i.e.,
now we think public sphere is where we should disagree
and debate ( for Kant it is the private), and that a
government should allow it publicly to become
democratic; private is the realm   where we cannot
transcend particular standpoint ( for Kant it is the
standpoint of the Government). To Chaterjee’s question
I think I’m closing in on an answer which I shall be
able to provide soon. It is the Kantian notion of
truth and its relation to particular faculties that is
behind such a formulation. Secondly, while talking
about truth, in order to remain faithful to the
Kantian use, I’ve avoided raising the question of
dissensus on truth, how truth is the longest lie, a
construction, a fiction etc etc ( this will not affect
Kant’s project though]. More productive would be how
different discourses appear with different truth
claims in modernity: for Habermas they are morality,
science and art and this could affect the Kantian
project; but let it be some time else.]

With love
Arnab

ENDNOTES

1.   Immanuel Kant, ‘Religion within the boundaries of
mere reason’ in his Religion and Rational Theology,
Trans. & Ed. Allen W. Wood and George Di Giovanni,
Cambridge University Press : Cambridge, 1996,   p.60.

2. ‘The conflict of the faculties’p.248,  in Ibid, pp.
237-327


 




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