Freedom of speech vs Research before speech

Before getting into the topic of 'Delhi Riots 2020: The Untold Story', let us address one thing, the best part of this whole event is that books are under focus and the talk of the town, something that is losing its sheen and connection with every passing day for some reason. Anyways, once Bloomsbury India decided to step down from publishing the book, some new Gurugram based publishing house named Garuda Prakashan chose to take up the 'mission'. This publishing house has a history of publishing titles like 'Urban Naxals', '#Modi Again' and 'Saffron Sword' to name a few so this step was not quite a surprise. They also published a book called 'Saraswati Civilisation' by Maj. Gen. G.D. Bakshi which claimed to rewrite Indian history which has also become a new trend by and large in India. We are now a nation where names of places keep changing and mosque become temple; claims do not just stop at mosques and temples, Taj Mahal is also under the scrutiny of re-writers of history. 

So, what is wrong? The quality of the literature? The fact that WhatsApp university messages are being written in books? Uninformed, unresearched, mindless work? No! None of it is a problem here, in my opinion. The problem is calling for a ban because banning books or any form of expression is fascism, and by doing it, liberals and progressives are making the path smoother for the fascists and religious fundamentalists. I am trying to reason out this whole thing and in no way uplifting the propaganda of the authors; Monika Arora is well known to be a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh sympathetic lawyer.

Bloomsbury India | Logic Soft | Our Claim | Book Trade Software ...
 
Let us consider few instances from the past; Hindu fundamentalists protesting against M.F. Hussain across galleries and even outside his house by stripping naked, the then Indian government banning Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie and Taslima Nasreen being attacked by Muslim fundamentalists and All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen in Hyderabad. We have stood against all of it and rightly so because it was clearly against the rights of expression and in a nation where artists and authors are hounded for their creations is a nation in danger. Then, why take a similar path and give the extremists and fundamentalists more reason to ban further works of authors who dare to speak and speak with optimum research?

The reasoning here is that 'Delhi Riots 2020: The Untold Story' is a book that is based on propaganda and not research and going by the history of one of the authors it might actually be true. However, then why did a publisher as big and reputed as Bloomsbury not do their research before giving a green signal to this project? The next point is that we cannot really stop these books from getting published in the era of the current government and this work got way more attention now than it ever deserved. How will anyone stop publishing these books if tomorrow the current government funds and builds a new publishing house?

Delhi Riots 2020 The Untold Story Controversy Demand to cancel ...

But, are we bowing down to fundamentalists and fascists by letting their works get published? Not at all. For every 'Delhi Riots 2020: The Untold Story' there will be a 'Shaheen Bagh: From a Protest to a Movement' and that is how it should be. Every work needs to be countered with other works and not bans. In no time, propaganda books will fade out because that has always been so and the best proof is, I am pretty sure most of the people reading this blog right now do not even know the names of the books that I have written in the first paragraph of this post. Let time fade out any work which is not worth surviving the test of time, let people read everything and decide on their own and let us all be unafraid to speak our minds out. 

It is of course, difficult to accept a book whose release has hate mongers like Vivek Agnihotri and Kapil Mishra (who has been accused of triggering the communal riot in Delhi) 'gracing' the occasion, but then fascism wins if liberals too take the same path and it should never be the case. By banning 'Delhi Riots 2020: The Untold Story' after publishing few first copies and then immediately promoting 'Shaheen Bagh: From a Protest to a Movement', Bloomsbury India has somewhere fanned the communal fire and also did injustice with the authors of the latter.  The debate should be about the quality of the book, the quality of the research behind the work, the truth of the facts claimed by the authors and not about Hindus vs Muslims which is the case right now. 

Psychologists: 'There is no alternative to free speech' | Cornell ...



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