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Censorship and its costly fallout

History shows the damage caused by rewriting unpopular elements of literature or economics extends beyond stifling the soul of education. It holds a nation's progress back

Devangshu Datta

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Photo: Freepik

4 min read Last Updated : May 05 2023 | 10:07 PM IST

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A few years before the Berlin Wall came down, I became friends with an East German engineer, a well-educated man fluent in English. I was reading The Black Obelisk, one of Erich Maria Remarque’s later novels at the time. My friend said he had never heard of the author.

This is equivalent to an IIT graduate never having heard of Sarat Chandra. Remarque’s best known work, All Quiet on the Western Front, is generally acknowledged as the greatest anti-war novel ever written. Serialised in the 1920s, it has sold close to 100 million copies across multiple languages, and inspired several iconic, award-winning movies.

Upon learning Remarque was German, my friend bravely made enquiries at his local library. He learnt Remarque had been banned in the 1930s as “unpatriotic” by the Nazis. The post-war Communist regime perpetuated the ban, since he was considered “reactionary”. However, the librari

Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper