Seeking Offense: Censorship and the Constitution of Democratic Politics in India
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SEEKING OFFENSE: CENSORSHIP AND THE CONSTITUTION OF DEMOCRATIC POLITICS IN INDIA A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Ameya Shivdas Balsekar August 2009 © 2009 Ameya Shivdas Balsekar SEEKING OFFENSE: CENSORSHIP AND THE CONSTITUTION OF DEMOCRATIC POLITICS IN INDIA Ameya Shivdas Balsekar, Ph. D. Cornell University 2009 Commentators have frequently suggested that India is going through an “age of intolerance” as writers, artists, filmmakers, scholars and journalists among others have been targeted by institutions of the state as well as political parties and interest groups for hurting the sentiments of some section of Indian society. However, this age of intolerance has coincided with a period that has also been characterized by the “deepening” of Indian democracy, as previously subordinated groups have begun to participate more actively and substantively in democratic politics. This project is an attempt to understand the reasons for the persistence of illiberalism in Indian politics, particularly as manifest in censorship practices. It argues that one of the reasons why censorship has persisted in India is that having the “right to censor” has come be established in the Indian constitutional order’s negotiation of multiculturalism as a symbol of a cultural group’s substantive political empowerment. This feature of the Indian constitutional order has made the strategy of “seeking offense” readily available to India’s politicians, who understand it to be an efficacious way to discredit their competitors’ claims of group representativeness within the context of democratic identity politics. The findings of the project have important implications for theories of ethnic party politics and the literature on the relationship between democracy, liberalism and the accommodation of cultural diversity. It also points to the need to rethink the relationship between India’s past and present. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Ameya Balsekar was born and raised in Mumbai, India. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Development Studies from Brown University in Providence, RI, in 2003. iii To my parents. For everything. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project has benefited from the advice and generosity of so many people that this list of acknowledgements will inevitably fall short. My committee members, Ronald Herring, Mary Katzenstein, Kenneth Roberts and Devra Moehler, have been patient, encouraging, and demanding in what appears in retrospect to have been the perfect mix. I am particularly thankful for Ron’s enthusiasm, his willingness to tell it like it is and to ask challenging questions; for Mary’s apparently innate positive energy and her ability to see how even a seemingly minor empirical finding engages with the bigger picture; for Ken’s uncanny ability to find a comparative hook even for a project as seemingly narrowly focused as this; and for Devra’s clarity of thought and careful attention to detail. A very special thank you is due to Tariq Thachil and Namita Dharia, for listening patiently to many an extended monologue over meals, coffees and drives over the years and for reading early drafts of the pages that follow. Thanks also to Jason Frank, Burke Hendrix, and the members of the dissertation colloquium in the Government department at Cornell University. To Dr. Usha Thakkar and the librarians at Mani Bhavan and the University of Mumbai and all the people who agreed to be interviewed for this project. To Bindia Thapar, the late Smitu Kothari and Brimla Loomba for helping to make Delhi feel like a home away from home. To my friends at Cornell for keeping me sane; and to my friends from Mumbai for ensuring that I never take myself too seriously. And to my family: Balsekars, Hosangadys and Karkarias. To my parents, for more than I can say. To my grandparents, for their consistent encouragement. Two of my grandparents did not live to see me finish this project, but I will always cherish the memory of their love and enthusiasm. To Akshata and Rishad. And a very special thank you to Kahaan and Kabir for giving me something to look forward to everyday. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Biographical Sketch iii Dedication iv Acknowledgements v Table of Contents vi List of Figures vii List of Tables viii List of Abbreviations ix Chapter One 1 Introduction: Censorship and the Constitution of Political Pluralism in India Chapter Two 30 The Role of Symbolism in Patronage Democracy Chapter Three 55 Uncovering the Patterns of Offensiveness: The Case of Aaja Nachle Chapter Four 85 Indian Politics in the Colonial Era: The Political Entrenchment of Cultural Revivalism Chapter Five 123 Revivalism, Riot and Realpolitik: Negotiating Diversity at India’s Founding Chapter Six 150 Whose Sentiment Counts? Realizing the Potential of Gandhian Multiculturalism Chapter Seven 179 Conclusion: Continuity and Change in Indian Politics APPENDIX: Censorship Events List 199 References 216 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.1: Dalits’ Structural Position Across States (as per 2001 census) page 63 vii LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1: States with at least 10% of their population belonging to the “Dalit” community in descending order of proportion page 59 Table 3.2: Changes in Competition for the Dalit Vote in “High Dalit Presence” States across the previous two Assembly (State-level) elections page 68 viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS BJP: Bharatiya Janata Party [Indian People’s Party] BSP: Bahujan Samaj Party [Oppressed People’s Party] CAD: Constituent Assembly Debates CPI(M):Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI: Communist Party of India CSF: Catholic Secular Forum IJP: Indian Justice Party MP: Member of Parliament NCP: Nationalist Congress Party NCSC: National Commission for Scheduled Castes RPI: Republican Party of India SC: Scheduled Caste ST: Scheduled Tribe ix CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION: THE CONSTITUTION OF DEMOCRATIC POLITICS IN INDIA On October 5, 1988, India became the first country in the world to ban Salman Rushdie‟s now infamous novel, The Satanic Verses. The decision came in the wake of some members of Parliament belonging to the Muslim community warning the Prime Minister, Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, about the likelihood that the book would incite India‟s Muslim minority to violent protest. It turned out that banning the book didn‟t prevent rioting: the disputed Muslim-majority region of Indian-administered Kashmir erupted in violent protest on February 13, 1989, followed by rioting in Bombay (now Mumbai) city on February 24, with both events ostensibly incited by Rushdie‟s blasphemous novel. Meanwhile, on January 14, 1989, the United Kingdom saw its first anti-Rusdhie protests setting off a chain of violence that included bomb blasts and large protests in London. The United States too saw its share of protests and violence against the book: a large protest of “thousands of Muslims” took place in New York City on February 26, 1989, and two bookstores stocking the book in Berkeley, California were firebombed two days later. However, of these three democracies, it was only in India that the book was banned. It continues to be banned until today.1 The Satanic Verses has not been the only book to face the ire of India‟s censors. In recent years, the work of noted artist M.F. Husain has been routinely targeted by Hindu nationalist groups, ostensibly for his “insulting” and “offensive” 1 This discussion draws exclusively on Appignanesi and Maitland, eds. 1990. The Rushdie File. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. 1 depictions of Hindu goddesses. It was these very groups who burned down the set of Deepa Mehta‟s film Water when it first began filming in the northern Indian city of Varanasi, in what some writers have referred to as evidence of a growing tendency toward mob censorship.2 However, it is not just mobs of religious nationalists playing the leading role in India‟s “age of intolerance”. The work of controversial Bangladeshi novelist Taslima Nasreen has routinely been censored by the Communist government in the state of West Bengal and the author was physically attacked in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad by members of the state legislative assembly.3 A noted actress in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu was targeted for “insulting Tamil pride” when she responded to the results of a national survey of Indian women‟s sexual habits by suggesting that Indian men ought to stop expecting their brides to be virgins.4 Arundhati Roy‟s Booker Prize winning novel The God of Small Things was targeted for censorship in the socially progressive state of Kerala, ostensibly for injuring public morality.5 And more recently, a film titled Aaja Nachle [Come, Let‟s Dance] was banned in three states because one line in one of the films songs was deemed to be offensive to the Dalit community, former “untouchables” in the Hindu caste hierarchy. What makes the practice of censorship in contemporary India particularly interesting is that all the events cited above have taken place during a period in which Indian democracy has been said to be “deepening”; a time when previously 2 See “Water hangs fire in Varanasi as Mehta awaits Jaitley” in The Indian Express, February 2, 2000. Available online at: http://www.indianexpress.com/ie/daily/20000202/ina02057.html. Last Accessed on: July 9, 2009. 3 See “Taslima Nasreen: Controversy‟s Child” on BBC News Online, November 23, 2007. Available online at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7108880.stm. Last Accessed on July 9, 2009. 4 See “The Khushboo Case File: Reverse Culture Jamming” by Tushar Dhara in The Sarai Reader 2006: Turbulence, pp 388-400. Available online at: http://www.sarai.net/publications/readers/06- turbulence/04_tushar_dhara.pdf. Last accessed on: March 20, 2009. 5 See “Under Fire, but India is in my blood” by Peter Popham in The Independent, September 21, 1997.