Book censorship in India has existed at least since the British period, and several books remain banned by the central and state governments.
Books criticizing major religions of India, as well as books supposedly portraying national figures including Gandhi and Nehru in a bad light continue to remain banned.
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During the 1960s, following the Sino-Indian war, Chinese books and magazines were banned. [1] After protests by Muslims and a petition by Syed Shahabuddin to the Rajiv Gandhi government, The Satanic Verses was banned in 1988, with India becoming the first country to ban the book. [2]
Many books in India are or were banned for disagreeing with Islam and Hinduism's teachings. [3]
Many books in India were banned for criticizing India and its government or political systems. [3]
Books were banned for criticizing Gandhi and other important Indian historical figures. [3]
The Scented Garden: Anthropology of the Sex Life in the Levant was banned due to sexually explicit content. [1]
Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi was an Indian politician and stateswoman who served as the 3rd Prime Minister of India from 1966 to 1977 and again from 1980 until her assassination in 1984. She was India's first and, to date, only female prime minister, and a central figure in Indian politics as the leader of the Indian National Congress. Gandhi was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, and the mother of Rajiv Gandhi, who succeeded her in office as the country's sixth prime minister. Furthermore, Gandhi's cumulative tenure of 15 years and 350 days makes her the second-longest-serving Indian prime minister after her father.
The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party or simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Empire in Asia and Africa. At the beginning the party contained moderates and later extremists, but from the late 19th century, and especially after 1920, under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, the Congress became the principal leader of the Indian independence movement. The Congress led India to independence from the United Kingdom, and significantly influenced other anti-colonial nationalist movements in the British Empire.
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Marathi pronunciation: [ʋinaːjək saːʋəɾkəɾ]; 28 May 1883 – 26 February 1966) was an Indian politician, activist, and writer. Savarkar developed the Hindu nationalist political ideology of Hindutva while imprisoned at Ratnagiri in 1922. He was a leading figure in the Hindu Mahasabha. He started using the honorific prefix Veer ("brave") since he wrote his autobiography. Savarkar joined the Hindu Mahasabha and popularized the term Hindutva (Hinduness), to create a collective "Hindu" identity as an essence of Bharat (India). Savarkar was an atheist.
The Bofors scandal was a major weapons-contract political scandal that occurred between India and Sweden during the 1980s and 1990s, initiated by Indian National Congress politicians and implicating the Indian prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, and several other members of the Indian and Swedish governments who were accused of receiving kickbacks from Bofors AB, an arms manufacturer principally financed by the Wallenberg family's Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken, for winning a bid to supply to India their 155 mm field howitzer. The scandal relates to illegal kickbacks paid in a US$1.4-billion deal between the Swedish arms manufacturer Bofors with the government of India for the sale of 410 field howitzer guns, and a supply contract almost twice that amount. It was the biggest arms deal ever in Sweden, and money marked for development projects was diverted to secure this contract at any cost. The investigations revealed flouting of rules and bypassing of institutions.
The Indian rupee is the official currency in the Republic of India. The rupee is subdivided into 100 paise. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the Reserve Bank of India. The Reserve Bank manages currency in India and derives its role in currency management on the basis of the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934.
Mani Shankar Aiyar is an Indian politician and former career civil servant diplomat. He is a member of the Indian National Congress Party.
The national flag of India, colloquially called Tiraṅgā, is a horizontal rectangular tricolour flag, the colours being of India saffron, white and India green; with the Ashoka Chakra, a 24-spoke wheel, in navy blue at its centre. It was adopted in its present form during a meeting of the Constituent Assembly held on 22 July 1947, and it became the official flag of the Union of India on 15 August 1947. The flag was subsequently retained as that of the Republic of India. In India, the term "tricolour" almost always refers to the Indian national flag.
The Emergency in India was a 21-month period from 1975 to 1977 when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had a state of emergency declared across the country.
David Davidar is an Indian novelist and publisher. He is the author of three published novels, The House of Blue Mangoes (2002), The Solitude of Emperors (2007), and Ithaca (2011). In parallel to his writing career, Davidar has been a publisher for over a quarter-century. He is the co-founder of Aleph Book Company, a literary publishing firm based in New Delhi.
The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) is an apex resource organisation set up by the Government of India to assist and advise the central and state governments on academic matters related to school education. The model textbooks published by the council for adoption by school systems across India have generated controversies over the years. They have been accused of reflecting the political views of the party in power in the Government of India. Recently it's been under scrutiny for saffronisation.
Nilanjana S. Roy is an Indian journalist, literary critic, editor, and author. She has written the fiction books The Wildings and The Hundred Names of Darkness, and the essay collection The Girl Who Ate Books. She is the editor of the anthologies A Matter of Taste: The Penguin Book of Indian Writing on Food and Our Freedoms.
Hawkers in Kolkata numbering 275,000 generated business worth ₹ 87.72 billion in 2005. In Kolkata, formerly known as Calcutta, in the Indian state of West Bengal, almost 80 per cent of the pavements are encroached by hawkers and illegal settlers. In many countries, hawkers use pavements or other public places to retail their goods or services but in Kolkata the magnitude has drawn special attention of administrators and law courts.
Peter Heehs is an American historian living in Puducherry, India who writes on modern Indian history, spirituality and religion. Much of his work focuses on the Indian freedom fighter and spiritual leader Sri Aurobindo. His publications include twelve books and more than sixty articles in journals and magazines.
Siddhartha Sarma is an Indian novelist and journalist from Assam who writes in English.
The Bengal Club is a social and business club in Kolkata, India. Founded in 1827, the club is the oldest social club in India. When Kolkata was the capital of British India, the club was considered to be the "unofficial headquarters of the Raj". The club is nowadays known for its old-world ambience and patronage among contemporary social and corporate elites, and is among a small number of Indian clubs featured in the elite list of the "Platinum Clubs of the World".
Mother India (1927) is a polemical book by American historian Katherine Mayo which shows Indian - society, religion and culture.
Krishan Kumar Aggarwal was an Indian physician and senior cardiologist who was President of the Confederation of Medical Association of Asia and Oceania (CMAAO), President of the Heart Care Foundation of India and the Past National President of Indian Medical Association. In 2010, the Government of India honored him with the Padma Shri, India's fourth-highest civilian award, for his contributions to the field of medicine.
Suresh Kumar Koushal &Anr. v. NAZ Foundation &Ors.(2013) is a case in which a 2 judge Supreme Court bench consisting of G. S. Singhvi and S. J. Mukhopadhaya overturned the Delhi High Court case Naz Foundation v. Govt. of NCT of Delhi and reinstated Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. The Supreme Court of India decided to revisit this judgement after several curative petitions were filed against it, in 2017. Thereby in 2018, Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India, a 5 judge bench of the Supreme Court overturned this judgement, decriminalizing homosexuality. But portions of Section 377 relating to sex with minors, non-consensual sexual acts such as rape, and bestiality remain in force.
The Adivasi Will Not Dance: Stories is a collection of short stories. The second book by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, it was nominated for The Hindu Literary Prize in 2016 and included by Frontline (magazine) in August 2022 in a list of 25 books “that light up the path to understanding post-Independence Indian literature.” As of April 2021, this book has been translated into Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Gujarati, and Bengali, while the Malayalam and Austrian German translations are forthcoming.