It was in 2003-2004 that a minor academic work by the scholar James Laine set off a fierce, orchestrated campaign of political protests that led to the state-banning of a book, threats to the author and other Shivaji scholars, and ransacking of the BORI library in Pune by members of the then little-known Sambhaji Brigade.
In the wake of the recent Supreme Court judgment overturning the ban on Laine’s Shivaji, two things are very clear. The first is that the Shivaji case is no longer about free speech, but about complex political reactions. And the second is that the Shivaji case goes beyond just free speech and free expression; at the heart of Laine’s continuing travails is the question of what we’re free to think and explore in contemporary India.
The Supreme Court judgment turns on an apparently minor point: can an Act (Section 153A) that invokes the possibility of censorship in cases where religious sentiments may be hurt apply to a great historical figure who is, however, neither a prophet nor a God? The Maharashtra government was forced to admit that Shivaji, however great a Maratha hero he might be, is not a religious figure, and the state ban on the publication of Laine’s Shivaji was overturned on this technicality.
Full report here Business Standard
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