[INDOLOGY] Wendy Doniger's book to be withdrawn in India by Penguin India

Thu Feb 13 12:00:33 UTC 2014

This is with regards to the recent discussion on the list concerning the
withdrawal of *The Hindus*. I would like to draw your attention to an
article by Mukul Kesavan entitled "Penguin's day in court", which appeared
in the Editorial section of today's edition of the Calcutta newspaper "The
Telegraph". It may be of interest to those following the matter.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1140213/jsp/opinion/story_17928781.jsp#.UvxOd_1tw0o

Thank you for your kind consideration,

With best wishes,

Bihani Sarkar, B.A. (Hons.) M.Phil. D.Phil. (Oxon)
Postdoctoral Research Fellow ("Nachwuchsinitiative"),
University of Hamburg, Asien-Afrika-Institut (Room 108),
Abteilung für Kultur und Geschichte Indiens und Tibets,
Alsterterrasse 1,
20354, Hamburg,
Germany.

On Wed, Feb 12, 2014 at 11:07 AM, Watson, Alex
<alexwatson at fas.harvard.edu>wrote:

>  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 Other publishers have just quietly withdrawn other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>
>  *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>
>  *Cc: *Dominik Wujastyk <wujastyk at gmail.com>, indology List List <
> indology at list.indology.info>
>  *Reply-To: *<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
>  --
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 11, 2014 at 6:01 PM, Valerie J Roebuck <
> 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> 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
>>
>>   <Doniger Saket-District-Court-Setlement-page-13.jpeg>
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