Why did the Telegraph stay mum?

BY Darius Nakhoonwala| IN Opinion | 13/02/2014

You don’t say!
Darius Nakhoonwala

Last September, Ananda Bazaar Parika’s (ABP) stake in Penguin India was bought by Random House. The question therefore arises: would ABP have withdrawn Wendy Doniger’s book, The Hindus: An Alternative History because some Hindus were upset with it? We will never know. But isn’t it odd that when all the major newspapers have written editorials about it, ABP’s Telegraph has chosen to stay mum? Penguin had shown great courage when it was defending The Satantic Verses.

Not just the Telegraph, either. Even the Pioneer, which usually comes down with some heavy breathing on the side of the Hindus, has looked the other way. May be it is confused by the conflict between banning/withdrawing books under duress and supporting nut cases.

But, as usual, the Indian Express, bursting with pious indignation, was first of the mark. After a brief recap of what led to the withdrawal of the book, it launched into some adjectives.

“Penguin’s insupportable surrender to a legal petition is a chilling reminder of our progressively shrinking resolve to collectively contest assaults on free speech and debate.” The edit page article by the side of the leader had said exactly the same thing.

There were more adjectives: “It is a bewildering turn for the Indian arm of the publishing house…the republic of ideas and debate is in trouble.” Then came more purple prose: : “The message is that contested analyses and narratives will not be challenged in debate, but debate on anything that agitated groups perceive to be unaligned to their puritanical, artificially compact worldview will be suffocated.” Words, words, words. Oh, come on, man, cool it.

The Hindu did no better. “In a distressing pattern.. another book whimsically determined to have transgressed cultural sensitivities, has been withdrawn... that the publisher allowed itself to be browbeaten into submission by a little-known outfit that saw no contradiction in its own sweeping slander of the author — among other things, the petitioner called her “sex hungry” — is a comment on the illiberalism incrementally taking India in its sweep.” Then the edit went off into the sociology of politics, the details of which I will spare you.

The Times of India took the same tack. “The withdrawal…highlights shrinking freedom of speech in India -- and more… What is surprising is Doniger's publishers buckling…”

Then it took a swipe at Doniger’s critics. “But by attacking Doniger's work for discussing sensuality in Hindu life, her opponents display a Victorian hangover with a Taliban temperament. Persistent attacks like these, and supineness of authorities, raise the question whether democracy — and India's future as a nation-state — can survive without freedom of expression.” 

What everyone forgot was that Penguin, as private entity, is at perfect liberty to do as it wishes to with its products. Everyone forgot to mention that the book can be imported and in that sense is still available for reading, albeit at a much higher price. In any case, how soon will it be before the pirates get into the act, selling it at traffic signals? The author will lose; the publisher will lose; and the Hindu zealots will stand defeated, thank god.  

I suppose that’s the problem with quickie edits. No thought goes into them.

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