[INDOLOGY] Wendy Doniger's book to be withdrawn in India by Penguin India

[Watson, Alex]

  *   STATEMENT BY WENDY DONIGER:
  *

Dear friends, I have had literally hundreds of requests for interviews, in various media, and I can’t do them all. So here is a statement that you may use. I hope it’s enough; it’s the best I can do right now. I intend to write a longer article for publication in a couple of weeks. Yours with gratitude for your courage and compassion, Wendy

I was thrilled and moved by the great number of messages of support that I received, not merely from friends and colleagues but from people in India that I have never met, who had read and loved The Hindus, and by news and media people, all of whom expressed their outrage and sadness and their wish to help me in any way they could. I was, of course, angry and disappointed to see this happen, and I am deeply troubled by what it foretells for free speech in India in the present, and steadily worsening, political climate. And as a publisher’s daughter, I particularly wince at the knowledge that the existing books (unless they are bought out quickly by people intrigued by all the brouhaha) will be pulped. But I do not blame Penguin Books, India. Other publishers have just quietly withdrawn other books without making the effort that Penguin made to save this book. Penguin, India, took this book on knowing that it would stir anger in the Hindutva ranks, and they defended it in the courts for four years, both as a civil and as a criminal suit. They were finally defeated by the true villain of this piece—the Indian law that makes it a criminal rather than civil offense to publish a book that offends any Hindu, a law that jeopardizes the physical safety of any publisher, no matter how ludicrous the accusation brought against a book. An example at random, from the lawsuit in question: ‘That YOU NOTICEE has hurt the religious feelings of millions of Hindus by declaring that Ramayana is a fiction. “Placing the Ramayan in its historical contexts demonstrates that it is a work of fiction, created by human authors, who lived at various times..........” (P.662) This breaches section 295A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). ‘ Finally, I am glad that, in the age of the Internet, it is no longer possible to suppress a book. The Hindus is available on Kindle; and if legal means of publication fail, the Internet has other ways of keeping books in circulation. People in India will always be able to read books of all sorts, including some that may offend some Hindus.

Alex Watson
http://harvard.academia.edu/AlexWatson


From: Dn Jha <jdnarayan at gmail.com<mailto:jdnarayan at gmail.com>>
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Wendy Doniger's book to be withdrawn in India by Penguin India
Date: 11 February 2014 10:22:46 EST
To: Valerie J Roebuck <vjroebuck at btinternet.com<mailto:vjroebuck at btinternet.com>>
Cc: Dominik Wujastyk <wujastyk at gmail.com<mailto:wujastyk at gmail.com>>, indology List List <indology at list.indology.info<mailto:indology at list.indology.info>>
Reply-To: <jdnarayan at gmail.com<mailto:jdnarayan at gmail.com>>


We shouln"t expect anything better from  Indian Publishers, be it Penguin or any other. They are all spineless. What is still worse, the reaction of the academic community hardly carries any weight. We have seen this in the case of Courtright' book on Ganesh, Laine's book on Shivaji, Ramanujan essay on the Ramayana; examples can be multiplied. In many cases the academics don't even react as I experienced in my own case. They swear by freedom of expression, but the freedom of X becomes superior to the freedom of Y.
I am familiar with WendyDoniger's writings which are undoubtedly refreshing and thought provoking and when I read her Hinduism book (Penguin India) I had a feeling that the Sangh Parivar may come out openly against it any time. I will not be surprised if the Parivar repeats performance in the case of her book ON HINDUISM published by the Aleph company last year.
Isn't it possible that the Penguin authors mobilise scholars from diferent fields and send a petition-on line to the Publisher. If Peguin does not agree to put the book back into circulation, at least the Penguin authors withdraw their books from them or at least decide not to publish with them in future. This is what some scholars, I am told, did with with Motilal Banarsidass in the case of Courtright's book.
D N Jha
Former Professor and Chair
Department of History
University of Delhi
jdnarayan at gmail.com<mailto:jdnarayan at gmail.com>
--


On Tue, Feb 11, 2014 at 6:01 PM, Valerie J Roebuck <vjroebuck at btinternet.com<mailto:vjroebuck at btinternet.com>> wrote:
Thank you for telling us about this. I am a Penguin India author too, and have emailed them with my concerns.

Valerie J Roebuck
Manchester, UK

On 11 Feb 2014, at 10:14, Dominik Wujastyk <wujastyk at GMAIL.COM<mailto:wujastyk at GMAIL.COM>> wrote:

Dear colleagues,

I am appalled to learn of yet another book-banning episode in India, this time
affecting our colleague Wendy Doniger.


Yesterday, if I understand correctly, Penguin India agreed to withdraw the book rather than fight the law case:


  *   http://scroll.in/article/penguin-agrees-to-pulp-us-scholars-book-on-hinduism-on-pressure-from-fundamentalists?id=656104

If you read the five objections offered against the book<http://scroll.in/article/five-piece-of-evidence-offered-by-fundamentalist-group-against-donigers-hinduism-book?id=656130>, they are risible.  It beggars belief that any court, much less a publisher, would take objections of this type seriously.

As a Penguin Delhi author myself, I shall be writing to Penguin India to protest this dark-ages ruling.

Penguin Delhi's contact details are here: http://www.penguinbooksindia.com/en/content/contact-us

Dominik Wujastyk
University of Vienna

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