LITINFINITE JOURNAL
ISSN: 2582-0400 [Online]
CODEN: LITIBR

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The history of literature is replete with multiple instances of protest and censorship. Words, phrases, sentences, sentiments and emotions have constantly been thwarted on various pretexts. Suppression of voice and individual spaces have always been there as a part of any dominant culture. Media too, has a significant role to play in the culmination, dissemination and even in the repression of protest through atrocities. There has been the best of times now, and the worst of times as the opposite. With gender-based, caste-based, creed-based and community-based violence and oppression on the rise, literature becomes a powerful tool to highlight the voice of the marginalized. National and international contexts in which protest, censorship and the criticism occupy a centrestage have been negated very often by powerful media houses, and on the other hand, literature in that direction has played a significant role in creating an all-encompassing region of going beyond the brutalities of censorship. There can be prevention, encryption, destruction and omission of sensitive literature or cultural information. Numerous ways in which the acts of writing can be suppressed can also fall under the category of creative censorship.

The current issue of Litinfinite Journal (Volume 6, Issue 1) is on ‘Literature, Media, Culture and Censorship.’ The aim of this issue is to look at the multifaced and interwoven characteristics of literature, culture, and media in terms of the applicability and the unforeseen consequences of censorship. The first paper titled How to avoid the paradigm of censorship: Self-consciousness, mimetic desire and the empathic style of Anita Desai by Manodip Chakraborty investigates the major social forces in the writing of Anita Desai and how the knowledge and boundaries of desire and self-absorption are often seen as the paradigmatic opposite to censorship. Manodip writes how ‘The censoring paradigmatic conception of ‘permitted’, ‘allowed’, or ‘functional’ interest in defining a human factor proved confusing to literary writers, when they have compared the ‘ideal’ as proposed by the censorship and the ‘real’ that these censorships are trying to prevent.’ (Chakraborty 2) The next paper by Dr. Sutanuka Ghosh Roy explores and reinstates the intricate layers of censorship in Michael Madhusudan Dutt’s ‘The Captive Ladie’: Text Context and Perspectives. Her paper questions that very fabric of identity politics and its diversification. Moreover, there is a subtle hinting of what the essence of nationalism entails. She interprets The Captive Ladie from social, cultural and political contexts and writes: ‘A probe into the poem reveals that the first and last paragraphs of the poem are arranged in a similar vein and the four paragraphs in the middle are of different types. The most striking feature of the poem is Dutt’s patriotism. He was a follower of the West in 1841 and considered Albion as his native land.’

We also have one more research paper in this volume. It is titled, Obscene and Perverse Fictions: Saadat Hasan Manto and Censorship written by Monalisa Jha. She examines the nature of obscene and perverse in terms of cultural normativity and the proclivity of Manto in renegotiating the boundaries of culture, censorship, media and obscenity in general. She refers to Foucault’s ideas about government, political system, learning and unlearning the concepts of a nation state. Monalisa observes, ‘In a society which at best ignored and at worst actively suppressed the idea of adolescent sexuality, where discussion of sexuality was regarded as unclean and outside the realm of the polite public sphere, Manto boldly traces the sexual awakening of twelve-year-old Masud, as he sees smoke rising from the freshly cut goat meat in the bazaar, and then thinks of his sister’s limbs as akin to the meat as he massages her legs.’ (Jha 22)

We also have two book reviews in this issue. Dr. Monika Malhotra reviews the book Woman-Nature Interface: An Ecofeminist Study by Dipak Giri and Shiba Khatoon reviews the book A review of Christian Education and Democracy in India edited by George Thadathil. Woman-Nature Interface, as self-explanatory, with ideas of patriarchal domination and ecofeminism taking centrestage. The book is an edited volume consisting of chapters that are introspective in nature, on the role and status of women vis-à-vis the active environment. As Dr. Malhotra opines through her critical lens: ‘how religious and cultural narratives perpetuate these constraints, and how ecofeminists strive to overcome them. The book also talks about third world countries where Earth is represented as a female Mother earth and Virgin land. Both suffer exploitation and violence at the hands of patriarchal capitalist society. Apart from this, the book also depicts that the nexus between nature and woman has been the focus of ancient Indian literature.’ (Malhotra 29). The next book, A review of Christian Education and Democracy in India edited by George Thadathil is critically read by Shiba Khatoon who takes into consideration the huge literary, cultural, social, political and religious impact that this book can have. The history of Christian education intertwined with layers of democracy are susceptible to multiple interpretations. As the researcher Khatoon observes: ‘The book helps in understanding the context (vision) which led to the development of the Indian Constitution while appreciating diverse perspectives with a single motive of the development of the people into a true democratic country. The Editor, upholding a similar spirit and vision, welcomed diverse perspectives from a cross section of people in bringing this book to its fruition with the unwavering motive of highlighting the relentless contribution of Christian Education towards the making of Indian Democracy’. (Khatoon 32)

I hope our readers, scholars, researchers and faculty will derive the necessary academic nourishment from Litinfinite Vol. 6, Issue 1.

I express my heartfelt thanks to all our esteemed editors, reviewers, and contributors.

I offer my sincerest thanks to Penprints Publication, for their constant technical support.

Thanking You,

Sreetanwi Chakraborty
Chief-Editor- Litinfinite Journal
Assistant Professor, Amity Institute of English Studies and Research
Amity University Kolkata. West Bengal, India.
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