Ultimately, the self-appointed custodians of freedom of expression won and a publisher lost.
Even after the legal team of Bloomsbury India found nothing wrong in the book “Delhi Riots: The Untold Story” authored by Monika Arora, Sonali Chitalkar and Prerna Malhotra, the publisher withdrew its publication and on the same day, published and promoted a fictional work “Shaheen Bagh: From A Protest To A Movement” authored by Ziya-us-Salam and Uzma Ausaf.
After a backlash from rightwing authors, Bloomsbury India issued a statement saying that it strongly supports freedom of speech, but has a deep sense of responsibility towards society.
Responsibility towards society? What responsibility? Where was this sense of responsibility when the Supreme Court had called the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protest at Shaheen Bagh wrong? Where was it when anti-CAA protests ended in Delhi riots killing many Hindus?
Did Bloomsbury India crosscheck the veracity of Ziya and Uzma’s claims that Tahir Hussain was innocent? No. The AAP leader was the mastermind of Delhi riots as per his own admission before the police.
Did they go into the claims made by Ziya and Uzma before publishing their fictional work? No. The anti-CAA protests were not Gandhian as claimed by them, because they were marred by violence in several states.
Did Bloomsbury India fact-check whether CAA is anything to do with the equal rights of citizens? No. On the contrary, the law is about giving citizenship to minorities who had migrated to India from the neighbouring Islamic countries, where they were persecuted.
Did they check Ziya’s claims about Hindus planning the riots to kill Muslims in Delhi? No. The riots, as per Delhi police chargesheet, were planned by Muslims during US President Donald Trump’s India visit to kill Hindus to create big noise around the world, painting Narendra Modi government fascist and anti-Muslim.
Bloomsbury India should be ashamed of themselves for not standing by their authors. They should have left it to the people to decide if the book was worthy.
The left-liberals proclaim themselves anti-fascists, but all that they do is no less than what fascists do. Putting a break on publication of books is absolutely an act of fascists.
Isn’t it ironic that Prashant Bhushan’s senseless tirade and baseless allegations against the highest court of the land without a shred of evidence to substantiate his claims is being zealously defended in court and in the public arena while a well-researched book based on facts on the ground and the living testimony of affected victims of the Delhi Riots is being dismissed outright without subjecting it to rigorous scrutiny and interrogating it’s fundamental premises which any book of this nature demands in any Liberal Democratic society ?
Do only ‘ Eminent ‘ personalities have the right to carry a loose cannon and get away with murder ? But those who are painted with unfounded slander and calumny be further marginalised by stifling their voices just because they speak Truth to the power of propaganda and vile obfuscation ?
Right from the anti-CAA protests that held a Nation to ransom to the ghosts of Partition masquerading behind apron strings at Shaheen Bagh, from the undisguised zeal of Tablighi fanatics who wielded a deadly Pandemic as the sword of Islamic retribution to the calculated arson, mayhem and murderous intimidation of our Secular tolerance in Bangalore, the message is unambiguous, clear and chilling.
Do we have a modern-day Gandhi at the helm of affairs for whom the ringing applause of posterity matters more than the long-running humiliations and relentless sufferings of those very citizens whose unstinting and world resounding mandate had once crowned him as the Hriday Samrat of the Hindus ?
P$ : This comment was posted earlier in response to OpIndia’s :
Freedom of expression: How ‘liberals’ dictated what could and should be consumed by readers
Rajan Laad | 23 August, 2020.
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