MARCH 8, 2011
Please find attached a letter written by John Ralston Saul to Rejan Welukar, the Vice-Chancellor of Mumbai University.
The letter is in respect to the abrupt removal, in September 2010, of Rohinton Mistry’s novel Such a Long Journey from Mumbai University’s reading list. The context of this decision is an important challenge to freedom of expression. A political party bullied one of India’s most important universities into removing a book. They also threatened peoples’ lives and staged a book burning. In spite of a strong campaign by the All-India PEN Centre, PEN International, and professors at the university and writers all over India, the university remains unwilling to stand up to these political pressures.
Click here to read the full letter.