It began with a ban on The Ramayana (1954), a spoof by the Thiruvananthapuram-born Indo-Irish Aubrey Menen. Pradeep Dalvi's Mee Nathuram Godse Boltoy also faced vicious attacks and had to knock on the courts' doors to overthrow a ban. Though the government's subsequent unofficial ban was thrown out by the Supreme Court, booksellers refused to stock the book in Maharashtra, fearing Sena vandals. Not only was American scholar James Laine's 'Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India' banned in 2004 following protests, a ban lifted only in 2010 when the Supreme Court upheld the Bombay HC's lifting of the ban. After the Shiv Sena arm-twisted filmmaker Mani Ratnam into changing how Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray was portrayed in Bombay, (set against the 1992-93 riots) this became a norm.

Source: dna February 04, 2018 01:52 UTC