Is such censorship ever justified? If so, who or what should determine which books are read and which are forbidden?
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) reads, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
Apart from being unconstitutional and violating international law, censorship is a matter of imposing privilege upon choice, ‘choice’ being the ethical concern here. It is one thing to exercise parental supervision – only till the point an individual is not of legal ‘adult’ age – it is absolutely criminal to disrespect the intellect of the reader owing to the (un)relativity of the content of a book with its political or personal ideology.
Censorship of book essentially means an opinionated moralising over readership. It is a value superimposed on the subject, content or more specifically on the mind and purpose of the author first and then on the readers. In simple terms, when any view and expression is a threat to an institution or ideology, it is prevented from being circulated with a propagandist measure. This tampering with content, including a curtailed or monitored circulation, impacts readership. Given this rationale, it is obviously never justified, because an individual’s expression as author and an individual’s freedom of accessibility as reader, assimilation and interpretation of the same cannot be moralized and affected. It is perceived as an act of colonization of the mind and is totalitarian in its approach.
Books that have explicitly challenged accepted norms of hierarchy whether in the form of the structure of a society (political) or sexuality (personal) have posed as a threat to the power dynamics of hegemony. Such a step is out of the fear that the agency might feel, threatened that the streak of change or message lurking in the book will have the potential to inspire minds to think beyond and break the existing streams of control. Thereby, censorship dismisses choice.
Influential in the way they provide insight into real events and issues in a relatable manner, books like George Orwell’s 1945 classic "Animal Farm" was banned in the USSR for its revealing depiction of the communist reign. Today, it is the go-to political manifesto regardless of geographical affiliation. Radclyffe Hall’s "The Well of Loneliness" (1928) voices the plight of women with alternative sexuality at times when society was far from being inclusive or sensitive to the needs and existence of an individual who deviated from the norm. The novel acts like a plea for a right, owing to its explicit manner of stating living beyond defined boundaries.
"Rangila Rasul" by Pandit Chamupati MA was scrapped years after its publication, in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh for its explicit religious controversy aimed at Prophet Muhammad. Recently "The Polyester Prince", Dhirubhai Ambani’s biography, faced a harsher fate, when Harper Collins couldn’t even publish it following an injunction slapped by the Ambani family. Similarly, the salesman’s voice in a land of venture capitalists, a black protagonist, or a domesticated woman’s creative realm – speak up for the content and language of the marginalized. Experiencing that thought or voice, as part of the margin or without, verifies Isaac Asimov’s judgment. We may choose to oppose a perspective, but there should be no limitation towards the acknowledgment of any presence.
In spite of evidences of embargo upon creative rights, it doesn’t justify censorship by any plausible means. Rather, forbidding content is both propagandist in flavour and remains against human rights of information and aesthetic experience. To conclude, if anything, there should be an investigation on the history of atrocity which silenced and suppressed any voice from being.
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) reads, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
Apart from being unconstitutional and violating international law, censorship is a matter of imposing privilege upon choice, ‘choice’ being the ethical concern here. It is one thing to exercise parental supervision – only till the point an individual is not of legal ‘adult’ age – it is absolutely criminal to disrespect the intellect of the reader owing to the (un)relativity of the content of a book with its political or personal ideology.
Censorship of book essentially means an opinionated moralising over readership. It is a value superimposed on the subject, content or more specifically on the mind and purpose of the author first and then on the readers. In simple terms, when any view and expression is a threat to an institution or ideology, it is prevented from being circulated with a propagandist measure. This tampering with content, including a curtailed or monitored circulation, impacts readership. Given this rationale, it is obviously never justified, because an individual’s expression as author and an individual’s freedom of accessibility as reader, assimilation and interpretation of the same cannot be moralized and affected. It is perceived as an act of colonization of the mind and is totalitarian in its approach.
Books that have explicitly challenged accepted norms of hierarchy whether in the form of the structure of a society (political) or sexuality (personal) have posed as a threat to the power dynamics of hegemony. Such a step is out of the fear that the agency might feel, threatened that the streak of change or message lurking in the book will have the potential to inspire minds to think beyond and break the existing streams of control. Thereby, censorship dismisses choice.
Influential in the way they provide insight into real events and issues in a relatable manner, books like George Orwell’s 1945 classic "Animal Farm" was banned in the USSR for its revealing depiction of the communist reign. Today, it is the go-to political manifesto regardless of geographical affiliation. Radclyffe Hall’s "The Well of Loneliness" (1928) voices the plight of women with alternative sexuality at times when society was far from being inclusive or sensitive to the needs and existence of an individual who deviated from the norm. The novel acts like a plea for a right, owing to its explicit manner of stating living beyond defined boundaries.
"Rangila Rasul" by Pandit Chamupati MA was scrapped years after its publication, in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh for its explicit religious controversy aimed at Prophet Muhammad. Recently "The Polyester Prince", Dhirubhai Ambani’s biography, faced a harsher fate, when Harper Collins couldn’t even publish it following an injunction slapped by the Ambani family. Similarly, the salesman’s voice in a land of venture capitalists, a black protagonist, or a domesticated woman’s creative realm – speak up for the content and language of the marginalized. Experiencing that thought or voice, as part of the margin or without, verifies Isaac Asimov’s judgment. We may choose to oppose a perspective, but there should be no limitation towards the acknowledgment of any presence.
In spite of evidences of embargo upon creative rights, it doesn’t justify censorship by any plausible means. Rather, forbidding content is both propagandist in flavour and remains against human rights of information and aesthetic experience. To conclude, if anything, there should be an investigation on the history of atrocity which silenced and suppressed any voice from being.
*My essay won the Boston Trustee Scholarship Essay* (sadly, not for me)
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