Sena, Congress united in slamming Mistry book

Moral policing is the great social leveller in Maharashtra.

On Monday the Congess joined the Shiv Sena in upholding the exclusion of Rohington Mistry?s book ?Such a Long Journey? in the Mumbai University syllabus, even as the writer hits back from Canada.

The 1991 book is reportedly critical of both Shiv Sena and Congress leaders like Bal Thackeray and late Indira Gandhi.

?Language of the book is highly objectionable,? said Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan, speaking a national TV channel.

The language is slang and not what you teach students, he said, justifying the withdrawal.

Earlier the campaign to withdraw the book was led by a scion of the Thackeray dynasty, who is now an upcoming leader of the Sena.

Aditya, the son of Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray, said the references in the book regarding the Sena was not tolerable.

His father Uddhav Thackeray said the book demeaned Marathi dabbawalas and the Marathi people at large.

Mistry, who is based in Canada, in a letter to the intellectuals protesting the move to withdraw the book from BA syllabus said: “A political party demanded an immediate change in syllabus and Mumbai University provided deluxe service via express delivery, making the book disappear the very next day… Mumbai University has come perilously close to institutionalising the ugly notion of self-censorship.”

On Aditya, he was quoted by NDTV saying: ?A 20-year-old, in the final year of BA in History, beneficiary of a good education… about to embark on the Shiv Sena’s well-trodden path to appeal to the worst in human nature.”

Mistry, however, commended the civil society for protesting the move.

Such a Long Journey is set in the early 1970s in Mumbai. The novel’s protagonist is a hard-working bank clerk Gustad Noble, a member of the Parsi community and a devoted family man struggling to keep his wife Dilnavaz, and three children out of poverty.

When it was published in 1991, it won the Governor General’s Award, the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book, and the W.H. Smith/Books in Canada First Novel Award.

It was shortlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize and for the Trillium Award. It has been translated into German, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Japanese, and has been made into the 1998 film Such a Long Journey.