India state bans book on Jinnah

[Spring Onion]

Madhya Pradesh not to ban Jaswant's book, says CM Shivraj Chouhan

BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Saturday ruled out the possibility of banning expelled party leader Jaswant Singh's
controversial book on Mohammed Ali Jinnah in the state. "Main Aisa Nahin Sochta" (I do not think so), Chouhan told reporters here after he asked whether the state government has plans to ban the former union external minister Jaswant Singh's book on Jinnah.

The chief minister's statement has come after the BJP-ruled Gujarat banned the book.

Meanwhile, Madhya Pradesh Congress demanded that state government ban BJP expelled leader Jaswant Singh's book on Mohammed Ali Jinnah.

"Madhya Pradesh government should impose immediate ban on the Jaswant Singh's book titled "Jinnah-India, Partition, Independence" as he had made some objectionable comments against Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the iron man of the country," state Congress spokesman, K K Mishra said in a statement here.

Expulsion of Jaswant Singh from BJP was party's internal decision and Congress has nothing to do with it, he said

Madhya Pradesh not to ban Jaswant's book, says CM Shivraj Chouhan - India - NEWS - The Times of India

 

[agastya]

But he is ready to be criticised. But there is no reason to expell him i mean solid reason.

i have already mentioned
every party or organization is run by a set of principles .. if an indivdual seems to deviate from these policy ..its the descision of the higher authority .to take punitive action of what seems suitable for him..

 

[pmukherjee]

I think it is high time we made banning of any form of work illegal in India. Be it a book or a film or a painting or a TV channel, banning of any thing should not be permitted. The entire educated middle class of India wants to get out of this rut of someone demanding a ban on something because he does not like it. Banning is obsolete in both thought and action. It is the backward and mediaval politics which takes us back hundreds of years. So much so that it has become a tool for those demonstrating political power and might.

Salman Rushdie wrote The Moor's last Sigh, some mullah somewhere issued a fatwa, Mr Rushdie ducked under cover and the Indian government promptly banned the book. Reading the book many years later, inspite of trying to find something so offending that it needed banning, I failed to notice anything but the extremely high quality of literary acumen that had gone into the book.

Likewise, Lajja by Taslima Nasreen. Huge hue and cry about that book. Nothing objectionable except the pitiful plight of women in Bangladesh which is no better than in India or Pakistan. Very similar thoughts were echoed in My Feudal Lord by Tehmina Durrani (though she dealt with the upper class of the society). Both the books are eminently readable and banning them makes sense only if we wish to remain insensitive to and perpetuate the sufferings on women incurred by the society.

The da Vinci code by Ron Howard was supposed to show Christianity in bad light. A big ruckus again, this time by some bishops and a few states in India even banned the perfectly innocent work of pure fiction. The politicians banning the book did not even pause to ask why it had not been banned in Christian nations. Even Italy within whose territorial borders lay the Vatican, the centre of the Roman Catholic power in the world did not ban the book or the film.

A few weeks ago there were some idiots demanding that some TV reality show should be banned.

Now we have the example of Modi banning Jaswant Singh's book. I am sure modi has not read the book (I doubt if he reads books at all). It was just a political statement and a display of power. Does it really matter to 21st century India whether Mr Jinnah was secular or not? Or whether Sardar Vallabh Patel was responsible for the partition or not? Does any one in India care? Except some historian and academic maybe. But even in Academia, Jaswant's book wont count for much as he is hardly a historian. The fact is that partition happened and Pakistan exists. The rest is of no consequence.

I am really fed up with politicians thinking they can decide for us Indians what is suitable for us and what is not. We should ban the bans.

 

[agastya]

^^^yep you just cant ban the books just because you yourself dont believe in it..

 

[Khajur]

did i say that ?

All i am saying that they are expelling him and banning book just because he praised Jinnah, then they are wrong indeed.

But again its your country whatever you want i dont have problem if you ban his book

Lets not forget that Jaswant singh was a memeber of BJP party and its only becasue of this status,he is getting so much coverage in the media.

If the book was written by some collage prof or other academic
intellectual, the book would have barely been noticed in the media.

Since he broke the rules BJP ...BJP has every right u expeel him.

But Banning his book was wrong and any book for matter should never be banned,its aganist the basic right to freedom of expression.

I think Jaswant singh must file a case aganist this ban.

 

[toxic_pus]

hay what dont you think so those who are against Jaswant on this issue are wrong? atleast there is no basis for hating him just because he praised a great man like Jinnah.

Nobody is beyond criticism. There is always more than one way of seeing things and a progressive society is the one that can uphold this multidimensionalism. Anyway, it was not about me, remember?

Btw, 'hate' is a strong word. I don't think anybody 'hates' Jaswant for his views. May be some are vexed by his views. Thats all that there is to it.

 

[Spring Onion]

Lets agree on Jinnah’s role
Editorial Daily Times
In his new book, Jinnah — India, Partition, Independence, India’s former foreign minister who later also served as finance minister in the last BJP government, Mr Jaswant Singh, has given India a positive portrait of Pakistan’s founder, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Given the fact of Mr Singh’s BJP affiliation, the book is being treated as an extraordinary event in India.[/img]
Because of his rightwing credentials, no one in India can doubt Mr Singh’s patriotism. That is why the book is going to be an important Indian revision of a highly demonised Muslim leader. Some other Indians too have done the job of balancing the distorted Indian view of Mr Jinnah, but this time history may be reinterpreted more permanently in favour of an Indo-Pak détente through a “reinterpretation” of Mr MA Jinnah.
Mr Singh has been blunt in his promotional interviews: “[Jinnah was a great man] because he created something out of nothing, and single-handedly he stood against the might of the Congress Party and against the British who didn’t really like him…Gandhi himself called Jinnah a great Indian. Why don’t we recognise that? Why don’t we see (and try to understand) why he called him that?”
Perhaps more significantly than anything else he has said in praise of his subject, Mr Singh’s explanation of the last-minute rupture between Nehru and Jinnah will become important in the coming days: “Nehru believed in a highly centralised polity. That’s what he wanted India to be. Jinnah wanted a federal polity. That even Gandhi accepted. Nehru didn’t. Consistently, he stood in the way of a federal India until 1947 when it became a partitioned India”.[/img]
Although pointed out earlier by Ayesha Jalal and Sugata Bose in their book Modern South Asia, Pakistani writers have ignored this real foundation of disagreement which made Pakistan possible. Both Allama Iqbal and Mr Jinnah wanted a confederal or federal arrangement in which the Muslims could attain a measure of autonomy and freedom from Hindu majoritarianism. The Cabinet Mission Plan which promised this arrangement as late as 1946 was scuttled, not by Mr Jinnah, but by Mr Nehru.
Mr Singh puts forward a point of view rejected in the past as a “communal” stance: “Muslims saw that unless they had a voice in their own economic, political and social destiny they will be obliterated. That was the beginning (of their political demands). For example, see the 1946 election. Jinnah’s Muslim League wins all the Muslim seats and yet they don’t have sufficient numbers to be in office because the Congress Party has, without even a single Muslim, enough to form a government and they are outside of the government”.
Pakistan’s myth of Indian opposition to the existence of Pakistan is based on the frequently expressed Indian view that Partition was wrong and that it was brought about entirely by Mr Jinnah and British machinations. Where the great Parsi Indian judge Mr HM Seervai had failed to remove the bilateral myths of partition with his book Partition of India (1994), Mr Singh might succeed. If that happens, both Pakistan and India will have to “rationalise” their view of Mr Jinnah.
In Pakistan, the conservative right and the liberal intellectuals are hopelessly divided on the person of Mr Jinnah. But both tend to stand together when it comes to what they think is Indian prejudice against the great man. Now that Mr Jaswant Singh has set the record straight in India, it may be easier for Pakistan to frame Mr Jinnah in a more realistic national reference. The identity of the state of Pakistan has been consciously moulded over the years in relation to India as the “enemy” state.
The Quaid can save Pakistan from its internal crisis if Pakistanis are prepared to see that the terrorists hiding behind “Islam” are opposed to what he wanted Pakistan to be. Pakistan’s statute books that contain laws against the minorities should be revisited in light of what he really stood for. He was never an enemy of India; India can reclaim him now. And in the process, India and Pakistan can change their bilateral equation, abandoning the path of an arms race, and accepting the mutual cooperation and economic interdependence dictated by history and current circumstances. *
________________________________________

 

[agastya]

^^^ i was reading a book a few months back that was Beijing turmoil- more than the meet of the eye..
there the author stated that the opinion of one person or incident , vary from that the other as per the persons perspective, his situation,and his point of view
so what might be something heroic to one can be gross for another ,what might be good for one might be for evil 4 other ...hero for 1might be villain for the other....


leaving that aside ....here we are into the topic of discussion viz banning of jaswant's book irrespective of whether he made a hero or a caricature of jinnah

 

[Spring Onion]

^
leaving that aside ....here we are into the topic of discussion viz banning of jaswant's book irrespective of whether he made a hero or a caricature of jinnah

Nop not irrespective of the points you mentioned. Because his book is banned for making Jinnah a hero who otherwise in India is always abused on pretext of being responsible for partion.

But anyway its tarnishing the Indian imange not ours so ban it or not its good for us both ways.

 

[sensenreason]

I think there should be no excuse for shying awya from accepting that those who are criticisng Jaswant or banning his book for praising Jinnah, all are wrong. Because even if entire India bans Jaswant's book on Jinnah it wont hurt Pakistan in anyway. If i think as a rival it would make me happy to see this happening all arround India. But if you ask me as a neutral person then indeed its unfortunate.

This is sad to hear you feel good if bad things happen in India....The fact that is unfortunate is that you are unable to be neutral...we all should stick to facts and not get stuck in the past.

 

[agastya]

Nop not irrespective of the points you mentioned. Because his book is banned for making Jinnah a hero who otherwise in India is always abused on pretext of being responsible for partion.

But anyway its tarnishing the Indian imange not ours so ban it or not its good for us both ways.

to us the whole essence is that that banning of book an infringement of freedom of expression ..the liberty which a person should enjoy beyond the perview of religion or personal aspect...

to us this banning is of same level of infringement of artistic freedom similiar to that with rushdie or nasreen or meira nair or mf hussain

coming to the point of banning book on jinnah didnt pakistan ban a certain book pertaining jinnah::::: stanley wolpert's book jinnah of pakistan

and coming to the term of of feeling good ,i would have really given you the credit ,had it been coming from a state which gives artistic freedom to people be it the same state or from abroad.....you cant even make fun of your prez!!!

 

[ratolz]

Banning a book or any film, thats not hurting anyones religious feelings, is like killing the democracy. I dont think other states will follow what has been done in Gujrat.

 

[Spring Onion]

This is sad to hear you feel good if bad things happen in India....The fact that is unfortunate is that you are unable to be neutral...we all should stick to facts and not get stuck in the past.

what a hypocrate you are. read my post again you very cleverly higlighted an incomplete line whereas you left out the the starting words without which the meaning of the post changes altogather.

I used the word "IF"

But again whatever way your boat sails

 

[pmukherjee]

Banning a book or any film, thats not hurting anyones religious feelings, is like killing the democracy.

Ratolz, hi.
So what if something hurts anyone's religious feelings? Aren't we a democracy, If so, aren't we supposed to be capable of absorbing and accepting diverse thoughts and opinions? Why ban anything at all? If you dont like it - dont watch/read it. Period. Remember the verdict of the Delhi High Court on the case of the appeal against the Star TV reality show? The Court said - why ban? You dont like - dont watch.

My contention is that all bannings are wrong. It presupposes that the persons demanding the ban are wiser or smarter than the target population. And therefore the 'banners' have the right to deny information in the form of some book or film to the population in the pretext of that information not being suitable. This very concept is repugnant and unacceptable in a mature siciety like ours. In this case, is Modi smarter than me or my neighbour? Nonsense. I dont have a very high opinion of Jaswant as a writer. But the option to reject his book should be mine and not Modi's. Who the hell is Modi to decide what is good for me???

Just my take on the issue buddy.

 

[sensenreason]

what a hypocrate you are. read my post again you very cleverly higlighted an incomplete line whereas you left out the the starting words without which the meaning of the post changes altogather.

I used the word "IF"

But again whatever way your boat sails

Incorrect. Ive posted your whole comment including the 'If' and only made the relevant section in bold (a common practice). You have not indicated which side are you on. Rival or Neutral? Have you?