Censorship across the country is on the rise with as many as 52 instances being recorded in the first quarter of 2014. Releasing data on censorship for the first three months of this year, media watch group, The Hoot , said this averaged a little less than one a day.
The agents against free expression were not just the state or fringe groups. The list is fairly long and includes courts, student organisations, State governments, publishing houses, the Lok Sabha Secretariat, the Central Board of Film Certification, a lawyers’ association, Hindu groups — including the Shiv Sena, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Hindu Jan Jagruti Samiti — the Information & Broadcasting Ministry, Tamil groups and individual industrialists.
Under attack were books, newspapers, films, Facebook posts, telecasts, staging of plays and the exhibition of films. As per The Hoot’s Free Speech Hub Tracker, the most “newsworthy” blackout was by the Lok Sabha Secretariat of the discussion on the contentious Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill.
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While Penguin withdrew Ms. Doniger’s book The Hindus: An Alternate History from India after pursuing the case filed by the SBA for a couple of years, the Aleph Book Company agreed to do the same with her book, On Hinduism , after it was threatened with legal action.
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The list also includes an attack on the Caravan magazine’s offices for publishing an interview with Samjhauta Express blast accused Aseemanand, besides industrialist Shiv Nadar and Union Minister Praful Patel who succeeded in stopping the publication of uncomfortable biographies.