{"id":438503,"date":"2025-09-20T12:17:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T12:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/438503\/"},"modified":"2025-09-20T12:17:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T12:17:14","slug":"does-the-cover-of-arundhati-roys-latest-book-violate-any-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/438503\/","title":{"rendered":"Does the cover of Arundhati Roy\u2019s latest book violate any law?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writer and activist Arundhati Roy is facing a public interest litigation (PIL) at the Kerala High Court over the cover of her latest book Mother Mary Comes to Me<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

An advocate named Rajasimhan has filed a plea seeking a ban<\/strong><\/a> on the sale, circulation and display of the book over its cover picture of a young Roy allegedly smoking a beedi, without any statutory warning that smoking is injurious to health or tobacco causes cancer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This, according to the petition, filed on Wednesday (September 17), is in violation of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003 (COTPA).<\/p>\n

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However, there is no provision in the Act that specifically governs or bars pictures published in books. It only governs the advertising of cigarettes and tobacco products as well as their representation in film. Here\u2019s what the Act says, and why it may not apply to Roy\u2019s book cover.<\/p>\n

The 2003 Act<\/p>\n

The COTPA was enacted to \u201cprohibit the advertisement of, and to provide for the regulation of trade and commerce in, and production, supply and distribution of, cigarettes and other tobacco products.\u201d<\/p>\n

It bars smoking in public, restricts the advertisement of cigarettes and other tobacco products as well as their sale near educational institutions and to minors, and mandates the display of health warnings on the packing of these products.<\/p>\n

The petition, a copy of which The Indian Express<\/a> has seen, states that the book violates Sections 5, 7 and 8 of the COTPA.<\/p>\n

* Section 5 prohibits the advertising of cigarettes and tobacco products.<\/p>\n

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* Section 7 restricts the production, supply, distribution, trade or commerce in cigarettes and other tobacco products to only when the product packaging or label contains warnings against the use of cigarettes and other tobacco products prescribed under the act.<\/p>\n

* Section 8 provides the manner of the health warnings on \u201ca package of cigarettes or any other tobacco products\u201d \u2014 that they must be \u201clegible and prominent\u201d, \u201cconspicuous\u201d in size and colour, \u201cboldly and clearly presented\u201d and \u201cvisible to the consumer\u2026before the package is opened\u201d.<\/p>\n

None of these sections will apply to the book cover, since they specifically deal with the sale and advertisement of tobacco products. While Roy\u2019s book cover does feature a tobacco product, it neither serves as advertising nor packaging for beedis.<\/p>\n

However, the petition argues that the cover picture \u201camounts to advertisement of the book and indirect advertisement and promotion of smoking and tobacco products, particularly since Ms. Arundhati Roy is a globally renowned public intellectual, and her actions exert a strong influence over youth and the reading public.\u201d<\/p>\n

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That said, the back cover of Roy\u2019s book does have the following disclaimer: \u201cAny depiction of smoking in this book is for representation purposes only. Penguin Random House India (the publisher) does not promote or endorse tobacco use.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rules under the Act<\/p>\n

The petition also relied on Rule 4 of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Rules, 2004.<\/p>\n

Rule 4 further prescribes the size and other specifications for the board used for advertising cigarettes and other tobacco products by shops and warehouses, as well as what warnings they must contain \u2014 \u201cTobacco causes cancer\u201d or \u201cTobacco kiils\u201d. It also states that when a character in \u201ccinema and television programmes\u201d has \u201cscenes with smoking situations and use of other forms of tobacco\u201d, there must be a health warning placed at the bottom of the screen. These films would necessarily receive an \u2018A\u2019 certificate.<\/p>\n

Another provision of the rule mandates that the brand names or logos of tobacco products must always be cropped out of \u201cpictures to be printed in any form of print or outdoor media or footage to be aired through any form of electronic media\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Since the rule deals with the advertising of tobacco products and their display in cinema, as well as the display of the brand names or logos of such products in publicly displayed images, its application to the book cover is not clear. The book cover only contains a photo of Roy smoking the beedi, without the brand name or logo of the beedi visible.<\/p>\n

In 2006, the Centre constituted a 17-member steering committee, to act against violations of Section 5 of the Act. It comprises the secretary of the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare as chairperson, along with representatives from the Union Ministries of Information and Broadcasting, Law and Justice and Consumer Affairs, along with the Press Bureau of India, the Advertising Council of India and the Press Council of India.<\/p>\n

The petition does not refer to this committee or whether the petitioner had approached this committee before he filed the petition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Writer and activist Arundhati Roy is facing a public interest litigation (PIL) at the Kerala High Court over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3938],"tags":[148494,148499,3444,148500,77,148502,148495,148501,132164,148498,148496,148497,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-438503","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-arundhati-roy-book-cover","9":"tag-beedi-smoking-controversy","10":"tag-books","11":"tag-cotpa-violations","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-health-warnings-in-publishing","14":"tag-kerala-high-court-pil","15":"tag-literary-activism","16":"tag-mother-mary-comes-to-me","17":"tag-public-interest-litigation","18":"tag-smoking-and-literature","19":"tag-tobacco-regulations-india","20":"tag-uk","21":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115236585508704211","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}