Book review: Niti Mehta and Anita Arya (Eds.), Role of Public Policy in Development Process: Emerging Socio-Economic Scenario in the Indian Economy

Published date01 June 2020
Date01 June 2020
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/0019556120921839
Subject MatterBook Reviews
Book Reviews 269
A common running thread among these groups was their struggle for collective
emancipation from different forms of subjugation. They felt that the application
of their ideas will actuate the change. Hence, they mobilised the Indians on their
ideological platforms for which they used different mediums to propagate their
ideas which were being suppressed by the colonial state. Raids in the printing
press, confiscation and pulp of printed material, seizure of pamphlets, posters,
calendars, banning of films were some of the methods. Use of spies and intel-
ligence, arrests of people involved, closure of offices and printing press, court
cases and jails were the other methods. To overcome these seizures, and attempts
on the part of the colonial administration to gag the ideas and protests, the Indian
protestors wrote on the roads and walls, distributed handwritten pamphlets and
used the public places to spread the messages. The will to fight was kept alive, and
individual and collective medium of expression could not be suppressed.
The freedom of expression in India, in fact, has been the hallmark that kept
Indian civilisation alive without any rupture in its known history. This freedom
of expression was widely permeated in the society, across all the regions and the
social strata. The migrants and invaders who arrived in the Indic regions became
part of this culture in the course of time. Those who attempted to suppress it,
failed miserably. The colonial state met the same fate.
The book, containing six chapters and eight appendix (in 100 pages), deals with
the banned literature which are divided into three categories, namely Gandhian,
communist and communalist. The literature of the revolutionaries has been clubbed
along with Gandhian. While the first chapter translated as ‘Freedom and Ban’ is
theoretical in nature, the other chapters, translated as ‘Communist Movement’,
‘Communal Writings’ and ‘Banned Cinemas’ are more specific including the
Conclusion. The eight appendix, on the other hand, list the banned films, books and
photographs. The book contains a lot of information on the banned literature that
one is amazed to assess the labour spent by the author in the archives to collect it.
It is an excellent book, very valuable for the researchers, and for readers, interested
in knowing a part of the history of the 20th century colonial India.
Himanshu Roy
Atal Bihari Vajpayee Senior Fellow, Nehru Memorial Museum
and Library, Teenmurti House, New Delhi.
E-mail: himanshuroy1@yahoo.co.in
Niti Mehta and Anita Arya (Eds.), Role of Public Policy in Development
Process: Emerging Socio-Economic Scenario in the Indian Economy.
Academic Foundation, 2018, 449 pp., `1495 (Hardbound). ISBN:
9789332704213.
DOI:10.1177/0019556120921839
The contemporary relevance of public policies is incontrovertible. The present
volume, Role of Public Policy in Development Process: Emerging Socio-
Economic Scenario in the Indian Economy, edited by Niti Mehta and Anita Arya

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