Mumbai-born Rohinton Mistry’s multi-award winning novel `Such a Long Journey’, set in Mumbai of the early 70s, which was being taught as a text to SYBA Eng Lit Students was overnight withdrawn on a demand made by the youngest Thackeray to emerge in the Shiv Sena. Aditya Thackeray, grandson of Bal and son of Uddhav Thackeray, and a student of St Xavier’s College, gave an ultimatum to the VC to withdraw the book because it contained references against the Sena. The VC immediately complied.
For too long have parties like the Shiv Sena decided what we should read. Normally, politicians give in. This time, the man occupying the highest academic post in the University, the VC himself, went out of his way to oblige this particular student.
To protest against such arbitrary and undemocratic infringement of academic independence, three Mumbai groups are organising a reading of Mistry’s book.