DW Bureau | Chandigarh, June 5:  The Institute for Development and Communication (IDC), Chandigarh, on Thursday inaugurated a week-long exhibition titled 'Bounded Ideas?', showcasing books that have faced bans in India and encouraging discussions on freedom of expression, dissent and intellectual inquiry.

Organised under IDC's Thinkers Collective initiative, the exhibition features nearly 100 framed book covers accompanied by contextual notes explaining the political and social circumstances that led to their prohibition.

The exhibition was inaugurated by Manraj Grewal, Resident Editor of The Indian Express, who said that books continue to face restrictions across the world because ideas often challenge established beliefs and power structures.

"Across the world, books are getting banned even today. This reflects how some people remain fearful of ideas that refuse to serve their interests. The exhibition provokes us to think and reminds us that thoughts can never be caged," Grewal said.

The exhibition includes books spanning diverse themes and geographies, such as V.S. Naipaul's  An Area of Darkness, Salman Rushdie's  The Satanic Verses, Arthur Koestler's  The Lotus and the Robot, Greville Wynne's  The Man from Moscow, and Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar's  The Adivasi Will Not Dance.

Curated by Dr. Srishti Chauhan, Assistant Professor at IDC's Centre for Gender Studies, the exhibition seeks to move beyond the label of "banned" and explore broader questions of morality, nationalism, dissent and artistic freedom.

"What changes over time is often the threshold of fear — what the state and society believe a book is capable of generating, triggering or altering at a particular historical moment," Dr. Chauhan said.

She added that the exhibition encourages viewers to examine how books become sites of contestation and to reflect on who decides what is considered offensive, dangerous or permissible.

Speaking at the inauguration, Dr. Pramod Kumar, Chairperson of IDC and the force behind the Thinkers Collective initiative, emphasised the need for research institutions and think tanks to remain connected to contemporary social debates.

"Think tanks and research centres must not become islands. They need to engage with contemporary narratives in ways that connect not only with scholars but with society at large. Diverse ideas must be debated, and this exhibition encourages reflection while cautioning against hasty reactions," he said.

The exhibition is open to the public and marks the first in a series of public-engagement initiatives planned by the Thinkers Collective in the coming months.

Dr. Chauhan will also conduct informal interactions with visitors twice daily — from 12 noon to 12:30 pm and from 3:30 pm to 4 pm — throughout the exhibition.

The inaugural event was attended by bureaucrats, former judges, scholars, students and citizens from across the region.