No need to ban

A new biography of Gandhi written by an American journalist, Joseph Lelyveld, has again invited the worst possible reaction to a book — a ban on its circulation. Gujarat, whose chief minister Narendra Modi’s regard for and understanding of Gandhi can be seriously disputed, has already banned it. Maharashtra, which has always been liberal with the ban instinct, may follow suit. The Central government has serious objections to the book. Law minister Veerappa Moily has said that he wants “to protect the nation from being taken for a ride” by an author. All this is before anybody has read the book which is yet to be launched in India. Only some reviews have appeared and the charge is that the book has portrayed Gandhi as a bisexual and a racist.

The author has said that these imputations are a distortion and misinterpretation of what he described in the book. He has dwelt on Gandhi’s close relationship with a German friend, Kallen Kallenbach, when he was in South Africa. Gandhi’s life was an open book and he was brutally honest about his personal relationships. His stature was not diminished but only enhanced by his truthful experiments with human passions and political ideas. There is a view, attributed to a scholar in the book, which held that Gandhi was a homo-erotic, not a homosexual. Hundreds of books have been written on him and he has emerged greater from them. The book portrays the evolution of Gandhi’s politics from his experiences in South Africa and the finding of racism in Lelyveld’s study would be most inappropriate.

Banning a book is the most undemocratic way of dealing with ideas. India, which has a tradition of tolerance and intellectual dissent cannot be any better with the tendency of politicians to drive away books for their narrow political ends. In the last many years a number of books from Salman Rushdie’s ‘Satanic Verses’ to Rohinton Mistry’s ‘Such a Long Journey’ have been banned by various authorities on opportunistic considerations. They have tainted the country’s image as a liberal, plural and tolerant society. The Central government is reported to be even considering amending the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act to extend it the Father of the Nation. This too is wrong and unnecessary. There is no need to protect Gandhi’s image with any law as he can take care of himself.