Thanks for sharing this Dominik. I guess this is in preparation for Modi's expected victory. Motilal has been heading downhill fast for some time--I guess now they have finally hit bottom. A petition is a great idea, but maybe one could also address the general decline in Indological titles in favor of new age crap that preceded this. Best,J     


On Thu, May 15, 2014 at 7:54 AM, Dominik Wujastyk <wujastyk@gmail.com> wrote:
I see from the April 2014 issue of the MLBD Newsletter that MLBD is bringing out an edition of Mein Kampf by Adolph Hitlar (sic).  It nestles incongruously between Alonso on the Mahabharata and the Black on the Upanisads.




This was a shock!  My immediate reaction was that I wish furiously to sever all links with MLBD.  I have already written to Penguin Delhi, asking to withdraw my book from them because of their scandalous pulping of Doniger's book.  Now MLDB is publishing "Hitlar."  Has Indian publishing gone completely mad?

My second reaction was, it's not wrong to publish even Hitlar's writings, because how else can interested people find out how misguided he was, and how else can historians combat his ideas.  Free speech and all that.

But my final conclusion is that this is indeed completely inappropriate because MLBD presents itself as an Indological publisher, and Mein Kampf isn't even remotely connected with serious Indology.  Even participants in the "Indology under National Socialism" debate don't really need a new edition of Kampf, surely.

I shall therefore be writing to MLBD in protest in the strongest terms about this pubication.  I urge all my colleagues to do the same.  If someone wants to set up a petition, I'll gladly sign it.

Best,
Dominik Wujastyk

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Jesse Ross Knutson PhD
Assistant Professor of Sanskrit and Bengali, Department of Indo-Pacific Languages and Literatures
University of Hawai'i at Mānoa
452A Spalding