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print versionJanuary 25, 2012
NEW DELHI: The technical term for banning a book in India is "forfeiture". This is provided in Section 95 of the Criminal Procedure Code under which every copy of the book could be declared "to be forfeited to government" and the police might therefore "seize the same wherever found in India" and the magistrate might issue warrants to search "any premises where any such book may be or may be reasonably suspected to be".
But this sweeping provision was never invoked in the case of Satanic Verses, although India earned the dubious distinction on October 5, 1988 of being the first country in the world to have banned that book of Salman Rushdie. All that the Rajiv Gandhi government instead did was to ban the import of the book.
That was because when Satanic Verses was being published by the London-based Viking/Penguin Group, its Indian counterpart had declined to exercise the option of bringing out a local edition. Penguin India’s then consulting editor Khushwant Singh, reading the manuscript, had cautioned that it might offend the religious sensitivities of Muslims.
So, the only way the demand for the book in the Indian market could be met was by importing the UK hardback edition. But then, within nine days of its publication in Britain on September 26, 1988, the Rajiv Gandhi government prohibited its import under the Customs Act. The action citing threat to public order was taken on a petition made diplomat-turned-MP Syed Shahabuddin.
Not surprisingly, the ban increased the demand for the book and the copies that had already been imported sold like hotcakes. The customs order could not come in the way of the sale of these copies, much less did it make their possession illegal. In effect, the order only prohibited further import. In time, the march of technology rendered the import ban irrelevant. For, such a ban cannot stop somebody from downloading a soft copy of Satanic Verses.
Given the rather limited nature of the 1988 ban under the customs law, the Rajasthan government has little chance of success in taking any legal action against the authors who had dared to read out downloaded excerpts of Satanic Verses at the Jaipur Literary Festival. The writers were well within their rights in protesting the pressure on Rushdie to keep away from the event.
It’s ironic that the import ban is still in force. For, even the notoriousFatwa against Rushdie had been withdrawn by Iran in 1998. The last time any famous author’s book was banned in India under Section 95 CrPC was in 2004 when the West Bengal government acted against Taslima Nasreen’s Dwikhandita for allegedly offending the feelings of Muslims.
