: The vandalism at MS University and the abject complicity of the university authorities in the episode are a sad sign of the failure to expand democracy to our civil and social lives. But before the MS University controversy arose, a small news item appeared in section of the media and then died down without much attention from media and the intellectuals alike.
This concerned the infamous controversy over a reference to Shivaji Maharaj in James Lane’s book Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India. The Maharashtra Government banned the book. The ban was challenged in the Bombay High Court and only recently the court ruled that the ban was indefensible. The aggrieved parties decided to appeal to the Supreme Court as the apex court had almost at the same time upheld a ban on a book in another case originating in Karnataka.
But one research institution decided that books not only need to be banned but that research institutions can serve the academic cause better by demanding a ban on books. So, the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute of Pune (BORI) formally passed a resolution and its office bearer, Vijay Bhatkar, publicly stated that the BORI has demanded that the book be banned. Ironically, it is the same book that brought BORI into trouble three years ago when angry protestors stormed into the institute’s library and ransacked it on charges that the institute was complicit in the “insulting” writing in Lane’s book. Following that incident, public sympathy and support flooded the BORI; large amounts of public funds were allocated to it for modernisation and digitisation of its library. Having benefited from the attack, now the BORI finds it convenient to demand a ban on the book.
Let us keep out the details of the controversy. What is painful is that the institute crawled when it may have simply be expected to bend. This episode shows the importance our academic institutions give to the issue of freedom of expression and autonomy of academic establishments.
Suhas Palshikar
