The new censorship: Books published abroad unwelcome in India?

Very few Indians read books. Even fewer read books published abroad. A handful of Indian scholars are requested by international publishers to review books, presumably with some bearing on India.

However, the ease of receiving books from abroad is now a distant dream, complain the small group of academics and authors.

Not only does Big Brother like to watch what Indians are reading and reviewing, but the government is now apparently making it difficult for them to even receive books published outside India.

Some courier agencies have struggled to deliver them too, given arcane local rules.

A post on X on Sunday, 29 September, by academic, columnist and public intellectual Pratap Bhanu Mehta saw agreement from fellow academics, journalists and authors facing similar difficulty in receiving books from abroad.

Mehta confessed that this was the very first time he was airing a grievance on such a public platform.

This is what he posted:

Mehta tagged Piyush Goyal, union minister of commerce and industry, as well as FedEx India in his post.

Mehta was speaking of book sent by a publisher — but never arrived. Several weeks later, a notice arrived to communicate that the book was being returned due to 'incomplete KYC'. A comedy (to put it charitably) ensues:

Prof. Jyotirmaya Sharma from Hyderabad commented that he too had been at the receiving end of misplaced rules and glitches on the website of the courier agencies: “A friend recently sent me a book. @DHLExpressIndia rejected several attempts on my part to upload the KYC documents. Tired, I asked them to return the parcel and apologised to the friend who so generously had sent the book.”

Former South Asia bureau chief for the Financial Times in New Delhi, Amy Kazmin (now posted in Rome) empathised: “I too experienced this in India: severe difficulties when people attempted to send me a review copy of books... eventually they/I gave up...

Travel critic Raj Khalid shared similar experience and commented, “I have faced this often when receiving simple catalogues and often I ask the courier to take them back. This government is obsessed with tracking, harassing and burdening people under the guise of preventing some remotely possible instance of fraud”.

Author and critic Nilanjana Roy concurred: “Used to be far simpler, but the process is (now) so painful and convoluted that I ask friends and publishers not to send books from abroad. Part of increasingly cumbersome regulations, including GST (not geared to writers/ creatives), that breed an insular, suspicious culture.”

Historian and author of several books, Rosen Dalal posted, “I had the same problem. Two books, where I am the co-author, sent from England. KYC was required and sought, including electricity bill. I refused, can't see any reason for it.”

IIT Delhi professor and social anthropologist Ravinder Kaur too has been a victim. “Have faced this.... it wasn't gold that was to be cleared by customs; just a couple of books to which one had contributed chapters!” she exclaimed.

Wordsrated.com reported last year that ‘From the available records, India is the country that historically accounts for most of the book bans in the World, as 11.11% of all recorded bans occurred in India at some point.

‘China is responsible for 8.99% of all book bans and Singapore accounts for 8.47% while Ireland (6.35% of all bans) has the most available recorded bans outside of Asia. Australia and US (5.29%) follow to close the group of the top five countries.’