Bhavana Kumari & Biatrisha Mukhopadhyay, PhD Candidates, Jawaharlal Nehru University
ABSTRACT
Banning various forms of art has never been an unusual phenomena in regimes harboring dogmatic attitudes towards their people. At the same time, banning culture is also prevalent in liberal world. This article talks about the upsurge in exercising censorship on political and religious literary contents in Mainland China from 2012 onwards i.e., in president Xi Jinping’s era. It explores some of the key reasons for the sudden need of stricter surveillance and censorship on different forms of literary works with political and religious contents. What spheres of literature are covered under the shadow of stricter banning laws and who are at the receiving end? Is the stringent banning culture in the Xi’s era compromising the quality of art and literature in China? This paper attempts to find answers to these questions. The nature of this research is qualitative. Relevant information and references are sourced from both the English and Chinese language sources.
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