Devika Sethi

About: Devika Sethi is a professor of Modern History at IIT Mandi in Himachal Pradesh, whose books War over Words and Banned and Censored have turned quite a few heads. She studied at St. Stephen’s College in New Delhi, after which she completed her Masters and Doctorate from the Centre of Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. She has also assisted in the preparation of the NCERT History textbook for class XI. Devika is passionate about Modern Indian History and Decolonization Studies and her books explore the contemporary history of India and its journey to freedom that was withheld from the world.

BOOK

Name: Banned and Censored

Description:

The book dives into the history of sedition and censorship in colonial India. Closely examining 100 texts that the British Empire banned, censored or deemed seditious, the work brings to life these lost gems from India’s freedom, cultural, and social movements. It includes writing by figures famous and obscure, of events immortalised and forgotten, by Indians and non-Indians, by people jailed and free, by politicians and missionaries, by travellers and novelists, and in several Indian as well as European languages. Each excerpt illuminates not just its author’s thought processes, but the times in which it was composed and circulated.