It is unremarkable that Aditya Thackeray, as a dutiful young apprentice in the Shiv Sena, should flip through a novel and flip out. He was being perfectly conventional, as he prepares for a larger role in the family business. Rohinton Mistry’s Such a Long Journey, published in 1991, has been on Mumbai University’s English syllabus for a few years now — but after Thackeray grand-fils chanced upon a few unflattering references to his political patrimony, it was summarily excised from the curriculum. Mumbai University Vice Chancellor Rajan Welukar leapt to action in 24 hours, in order to placate the Sena’s student wing, and using emergency powers at his disposal. And now, that decision has been bolstered by the Congress chief minister, Ashok Chavan, declaring the book “highly objectionable” and unsuitable for academic attention.
It’s just another instance of Maharashtra’s pattern of parochialism, offence-taking and, ultimately, all institutions conspiring to constrict freedom. The Sena does what it has always done, nurse the small injuries of the Marathi manoos and build its political fortune on that sense of disenfranchisement. Any act that signals cultural machismo and embattled pride is good enough for the Thackerays and their ilk to exploit. But the Congress disgraces itself by seconding that intolerance. Perhaps Ashok Chavan had his own set of stakes in dismissing the Mistry novel, which doesn’t enlarge Indira Gandhi’s aura either. Either way, this is just one more in a long line of sorry examples where all mainstream political forces acquiesce, and let the most resentful extreme set the state’s agenda.
Maharashtra’s deep and dangerous illiteracy was last on display when James Laine’s book on the Shivaji legend was opposed by every political party, who read it as an assault on Maharashtra’s moral fabric. Then as in now, unofficial censorship prevailed. Free thinking is a university’s fundamental project — and by letting a 20-year-old on the make commandeer the academic agenda, Mumbai University has sold itself terribly short. Instead of being the last haven of inquiry and free scholarship, the campus has become another flashpoint in the cultural war.
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