Is banning a solution or a problem?

I wrote my last post about the movie or video clip which is creating a lot of controversy nowadays. While writing that I was thinking about many other movies, books, articles, or cartoons that created similar reactions or uproars in the past and were banned in various countries. I was wondering what purpose these bans served? Did they solve any problem? Did these banned things disappear because of the ban or did they become more popular? Did banning these things serve any purpose or create more trouble or problems? 

The Satanic Verses was banned for some objectionable content and it made Salman Rushdie a world-famous author and celebrity. Lajja made Tasleema Nasreen a permanent refugee in India and also a celebrity. Arun Shourie was already a celebrated author but his book 'Worshiping False Gods' resulted in him getting mobbed and attacked in his own country. All these books are still very popular and are still in very high demand and some people read them just because they are curious about these books because of the ban imposed on them. There were bans issued against many other books, movies, cartoons, etc. Protests, fatwas, and whatnot followed but in the end, what happened? Who won or who lost?

This reminds me of some incidents in history, even Jesus was mobbed and attacked, many people wanted to kill Muhammad, and Budhha was also not very popular because he challenged many established religious beliefs and faiths. I am not comparing these people with anybody but just comparing the situations and mentality of a mob. Some people, organizations or establishments were always against new thoughts or ideas which doesn't fit in their ideology and the interesting part is that they don't try to oppose these things with better thoughts or ideas but rather they try to attack these people, try to kill them and think that by killing a person they can kill their ideas. It never worked with anyone in history, rather whenever these authors, books, or even a crappy movie like 'Innocence of Muslims' were attacked they became more famous, they got more attention, more followers, and generated more curiosity. These bans and violent protests help to make these things more popular. Some of these books or movies (like Innocence of Muslims) are made or written to create trouble and these protesters help to fulfill that by their behavior and they don't even realize it. So my question is why don't people understand that by attacking people, books or any ideology by violence they are not going to achieve anything other than destruction and trouble? They indirectly help to make these things more popular. I agree that sometimes these articles, films, or ideologies need to be criticized or questioned but definitely, violence in any form is not required to oppose them. One can register their protests in many forms which don't require any sort of violence and are equally effective or if they don't agree with contents of any of these things then just ignore them.

I personally love to read and it is one of my favorite hobbies but till now I have not read anything where I thought it required violence to register my protest against it. Humans claim to be different than other animals and very often believe it or not we behave like or worse than other animals. Can't we behave more like humans than animals while registering our protests, can't we understand that there is bound to be a difference of opinion among us and we should learn to live with it? Is it that difficult? I don't think it is. 

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing)