On Monday, two men entered the University Press Limited outlet at Banglabazar in Dhaka posing as customers, objected to the sale of “Oshomapto Attojiboni”, and claimed the book had been banned. It had not. They then took two UPL employees to a police outpost and locked the outlet.
The police response is the part that should concern everyone. The employees were released on the condition that they stop selling the book. The demand of two men acting on a false claim was, in effect, enforced by the state.
“Oshomapto Attojiboni” is Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s memoir, published in English as The Unfinished Memoirs. No order prohibits its sale. A bookseller was nonetheless required to withdraw a lawfully available title because two people turned up and asserted otherwise.
That is the precedent, and it is broader than one book. If an unsupported claim backed by intimidation can remove a title from sale, the limits of what may be published are set by whoever is prepared to show up. No censor needs to be appointed; the function gets performed informally, and more cheaply.
The incident also fits a sequence. Recent weeks have brought attacks on the Radda MCH-FP Centre, a content creator’s studio, and properties at Mirpur-1, ECB Chattar, Mohammadpur and Adabor. In each case a group arrived, took what it wanted, and encountered little effective resistance from the authorities present.
The BNP administration came in promising an end to mob rule. The promise is being tested in public, and so far the outcome at Banglabazar suggests the test is not being passed.
What is required is not complicated. Direct the police that no lawfully published book is withdrawn on the demand of self-appointed enforcers. Arrest those responsible for Monday’s incident. Provide protection to UPL staff, who were detained for doing their jobs. And make clear that there is no tolerance for this, in terms specific enough to reach a duty officer at an outpost.
Publishing survives on the assumption that a bookseller can stock a legal title without needing to negotiate it. Once that assumption goes, the range of what gets published narrows in advance, quietly, and without any order ever being issued.
