"Censorship Of A Book Review": Allegation Over Shehla Rashid's Role Models (image: x.com/Shehla_Rashid/)
Mumbai-based writer Farzana Versey alleged that the Hindustan Times refused to publish her review of Shehla Rashid’s debut work, Role Models: Inspiring Stories of Indian Muslim Achievers, which commissioned her to write on the first hand. Versey who is a contributor to the HT before, said that the newspaper establishment has told her that her review “can’t be used” after three weeks of submission. She states it as “censorship of a book review”. She then carried forward her review in the portal Countercurrents.Org.
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“Who would’ve thought there’d be censorship of a book review? I don’t usually rant on personal issues, but I’ll do it now. I was commissioned by @htTweets to write on Shehla Rashid’s Role Models. I wrote about how problematic it is, how it panders to the BJP version of mainstream, & how nobody talks about Hindu role models. 3 weeks later, I was told it can’t be used,” she wrote on X.
Who would’ve thought there’d be censorship of a book review? I don’t usually rant on personal issues, but I’ll do it now. I was commissioned by @htTweets to write on Shehla Rashid’s Role Models. I wrote about how problematic it is, how it panders to the BJP version of mainstream,…
— Farzana Versey (@farzana_versey) December 5, 2024
Continuing further, she wrote, “It’s infuriating & proved my point that the only good Muslim is one who toes the line of the establishment & its M cohorts. Even if the book is about the community you belong to, accept what the govt. deems right.”
Rashid‘s Role Models, published by Penguin Random House has been presented as a “refreshing” and “unique” account of the contributions of Indian Muslims to national life through documenting sixteen people from different fields.
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In the deeply critical review of the book published on Countercurrents.Org, Versey claims that the book dwells on a “supra identity” branding a community and addressing it to “course correct itself towards acceptable-to-the-mainstream inspirations”. Adding further, she writes that book is not an ode to role models, “but to ‘Viksit Bharat’, ‘Beti Bachao’, ‘Amrit Kaal’; there’s a chapter titled Why Prime Minister Narendra Modi Is My Role Model.”
