THE NOTION OF CENSORSHIP AS A TOOL FOR MORAL, cultural, and political policing was entirely transformed by the experience of colonialism. This legacy continues to have a deep impact on the nature of cultural suppression in post-colonial times. The deployment of the institutions of the state to suppress images or texts seen to be blasphemous, obscene, or seditious, has traditionally been viewed as a form of oppression. However, sections of the Bengali establishment now see censorship as productive and view it as an accepted (even essential) way to transform individuals into social subjects.

In 2003, the Government of West Bengal decided to ban the third part of the Bangladeshi writer, Taslima Nasrin’s seven-part autobiography, Dwikhandita (Split into Two).  The first two volumes, which dealt with the early part of the exiled writer’s life and her subsequent marriage, were received with sympathy. However, it was felt that the third, which described her sexual life with considerable candour, would ignite communal tensions.  The writer Sunil Gangopadhyay, a pillar of the Bengali cultural establishment, said he found the sexual candour objectionable but that he supported the ban only on account of passages that were critical of Islam.ⁱ

The controversy surrounding Nasrin helps us understand the complex relationship between post-colonial institutions and a writer whose work analyses the condition of minorities, women, and religion in society. She is reviled by fundamentalists, cherished and despised in turns by the reading public, handled with care by the secular intelligentsia and fellow feminists, and banned by the state. Nasrin’s case is a fascinating example of how the state uses religious, rather than literary, criteria to judge texts.ⁱⁱ

Another issue with Dwikhandita – a novel about desire and bodily pleasure – is that a woman has written it. Social values, cultural prejudices, and artistic license, all come into play, providing crucial insights into the gendered nature of censorship. It is interesting that even the venerable Rabindranath Tagore faced a great deal of criticism from his Bengali readership for the novel Chokher Bali (Sand in the Eye), the tale of Binodini, a beautiful widow who seduces a married man, published in the Bengali literary magazine, Bangadarshan, in 1902. According to the social scientist, Rochona Majumdar, Nasrin’s troubles are evidence that 19th century prudery continues to pervade public sentiment.ⁱⁱⁱ