The Censorship of Literature
When Shakespeare’s play The Taming of the Shrew was staged in New York in the summer of 1990, its mysogynist language was changed. According to The Times Saturday Review (10 November 1990) it was ‘bowdlerized’. In the same vein The Friday Times of 16-22 May reports that classics of English literature are being expurgated of ‘obscenity’, ‘vulgarity’ and other elements not acceptable to the more puritanical amongst us. Debates about what should be allowed to the public and what is fit to be censored are almost as old as the dawn of history.
In Plato’s Republic, the philosopher Socrates says: ‘Then the first thing will be to establish a censorship of the writers of fiction which is good, and reject the bad’. But Plato’s ideal state was never established. States which did impose censorship on literature---the Soviet Union for instance---killed off their talent; lost out in the field of creativity; stunted their children’s imagination and make their educated classes too cowardly to have dignity, self-worth or an independent opinion of their own.
Essentially, the fear of either love or sex in literature is a fear of the body. The idea at the back of the mind is that if any of these things are mentioned, no matter in how artistic a form, people will lose control of themselves and go about on a raping spree. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Rape is an expression of violence. It thrives in societies which starve people of normal and legitimate sexual expression while, at the same time, keeping women disempowened. In our society The State of Human Rights in Pakistan, which is published every year, reports a high number of rapes. These were not committed by men who read literature nor were the women immodestly dressed. Mostly, the women were weak and could be coerced by the rapist. The system of policing, provision of justice and family honour is biased against the victims. She cannot report to the police for fear of losing her honour. And if she does, men look upon her as the temptress while having a soft corner for the rapist.
Moreover, it is well known that the more the body is hidden away the more people are prone to think about it. In cultures where women are hardly seen, there is more oggling of those few who are. And, once again, people require no literary text to think of the body. All they require is an imagination. The irony is that the more we starve our imaginations, the more we tend to be obsessed with sex. This is a price which all puritanical societies have to pay.
I do not know the details of what has been proposed, or done, in the Punjab University. I do, however, know something about the history of bowdlerization among the Muslims of South Asia. Since it seems to be relevant to our present concerns, let me mention it here. Dr. Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825), the man who wrote an expurgated edition of Shakespeare, came at a time when the Puritans, with their fear and mistrust of the body, had come to dominate England. Puritanism was at its height during the Victorian era when the British ruled India. When the Victorian British officers read Indian literature---both of the Hindus and the Muslims---they were shocked and offended. By the 1850s a large number of British officers were complaining about the obscenity of the classics of Persian which they were being taught. H.S. Raid, responsible for education in UP in the 1850s, called Bahar-e-Danish ‘highly objectionable’ in tone. Colonel Holroyd, Director of Public Instruction in the Punjab, called it ‘highly immoral’. Bahar-e-Danish, incidentally, was a Persian classic which had been taught for centuries to the Indian educated classes. Like all Muslim medieval literature, it was quite frank about all aspects of life including sex. So were the great Persian classics of all times: Gulistan and Bostan of Sa’ adi and even the famous Masnawi’ Ma’ nawi of Rumi. The fifth chapter of the Gulistan was, indeed, mostly about love—‘even about the love that dare not speak its name’. The British were especially shocked by this and used to refer to it as ‘the unspeakable vice of the Greeks’. But Sa’adi was not given to reticence.
Arabic literature was no better. Even if one excluded the notorious Abu Nawas, one could hardly do away with the Maqamat al-Hariri written in the eleventh century. The Maqamat is taught in the Islamic madrassas of South Asia even now but its protagonist, Abu Zaid of Zeroug, deceives people, dances, drinks and enjoys beauty in all its forms. Moreover the Alf Laila Val Lail, the legendary stories about Baghdad, taught in India were full of erotic references. Indeed the pages of the Arabian Nights, as they were known, thronged with ‘moon faced’ beauties and wine was mentioned almost on every page. In despair the puritan turned to Urdu literature but there was the ma’shuq (the beloved); the ashiq (the lover) and, of course, sharab (wine) in abundance. Uncle Ghalib quite openly asked the beloved for kisses (bose ko poochta hoon; moon se mujhe bata ke yoon) and wrote letters telling the world exactly what kind of wine he drank and how much he was in debt because of it. Meer Taqi Meer in his six collections of poetry said many things which could make the puritan blush and the Lucknow poets could hardly be countenanced. The British, therefore, decided to undertake a huge literary experiment---that of changing Muslim literature in India so as to make it ‘respectable’!
If our literary ancestors had decided to stand up to this imposition, the British could have done very little. They were quite mild and flexible and not at all tyrannical (unless you wanted to throw them out). But what happened? Ironically enough, our own puritans joined hands with the British. They thought Muslim civilization had been defeated because we wrote such salacious stuff. The ulema did not like any literature anyway---least of all the upstart Urdu ghazal. Thus Mohammad Hussain Azad in Aab-e-Hayat (1880) complained that Urdu was fall of exaggeration and that it was ‘decadent’. Altaf Hussain Hali (1837-1914) went a step further and condemned Urdu literature in vitriolic terms:
(That obscene collection of poem and panegyrics
Which is more noisome than a dunghill)
Sir Syed also joined the puritans and praised Hali’s efforts. Deputy Nazeer Ahmed in his novel Taubat un Nusuh (1873) actually celebrates the scene of the burning of Persian and Urdu classics. He even calls Gulistan unsuited for ladies and blackens out one fourth of it when he teaches it to his wife. Another reformer---Mumtaz Ali (1860-1935)---established a weekly for women all right but felt that Meer Amman’s Bagh-o-Bahar, a canonical work, was unfit for both boys and girls. Thus the puritans went on to demolish text after text---the full story is in my book Language, Ideology and Power (OUP, 2002)---till almost nothing was left. Ironically, and curiously enough, the only place which does have literature of the past with a few erotic lines here and there is the madrassa. They still have the Saba Moallaqa, the Diwan-e-Hamasa, Diwan-e-Mutanabbi and sometimes Gulistan and Bostan. But the students probably do not read the erotic lines and, in any case, they merely memorize whatever they are supposed to read.
In short, Victorian prudery in alliance with our own lack of confidence in ourselves as a consequence of defeat, robbed us of our heritage. Our children no longer read Arabic, Persian and Urdu literature---not even in translation. If the Masnawi was ever given to them in translation they would call it ‘obscene’ because Rumi is not shy of narrating earthy anecdotes. For the Muslim civilizations, literature was the name of the whole experience of life; for us, it is a way of learning the language. But, obviously, to understand life; to enjoy the gifts of creativity; to keep company with some of the most artistic geniuses of the world---one must take them as a whole. One cannot take them in an expurgated form. That is doing violence to them.
What intrigues me is why English literature has been chosen by the censors this time. It is, after all, among the world’s most puritanical, most colourlesss, most ‘respectable’ of all literatures. Contemporary English literature, which is bolder, is not taught anyway---so why censor classical English literature? But let us thank our stars it is English and not Urdu literature. It someone were to turn his attention to the good old Chacha Ghalib or Meer or Momin---to say nothing of the Rekhti or Sarapa Sakhan or Vasokht or Hazal poets---we will lose the most priceless legacy of our civilization. Let us hope that day does not come?