India has long faced an uneasy tension between allowing free expression to its citizens and staunching sectarian violence among its people. It was one of the first countries to ban “The Satanic Verses” by Salman Rushdie. Lawsuits forced the Indian painter Maqbool Fida Husain to live in exile during the last several years of his life. An academic book about the 17th-century warrior known as Shivaji was banned for fear of offending Shivaji’s modern-day fans, until the Supreme Court lifted the prohibition.Now comes the Internet, that bottomless well of words and pictures rife with potential to inflame sentiments.
http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/14/indias-courts-grapple-with-web-censorship/
India’s Courts Grapple With Web Censorship
India has long faced an uneasy tension between allowing free expression to its citizens and staunching sectarian violence among its people. It was one of the first countries to ban “The Satanic Verses” by Salman Rushdie. Lawsuits forced the Indian painter Maqbool Fida Husain to live in exile during the last several years of his life. An academic book about the 17th-century warrior known as Shivaji was banned for fear of offending Shivaji’s modern-day fans, until the Supreme Court lifted the prohibition.