People's Democracy

On the Withdrawal of Wendy Doniger’s book

The following is the statement issued by eminent scholars, academicians, intellectuals on February 15 on the ban on Wendy Doniger’s book

THE surrender of a major publishing firm (Penguin India) over Professor Wendy Doniger's book The Hindus, an Alternative History, in a recent out-of-court settlement that involves the withdrawal of the book and the pulping of its copies, has rightly aroused much disquiet among all circles committed to freedom of speech and respect for scholarly disagreements. The event has, however, a still more sinister aspect. It is, clearly an early salvo in the renewed campaign to drown all questioning voices and prepare the ground for a full-fledged chauvinistic and communal presentation of our history and culture with no quarter allowed to dissenting voices. The misuse of judiciary to browbeat the author or publisher of a book that the bigots do not like is characteristic of the usual Hindutva campaign. The next step, as some newspaper reports already suggest, is to extend the net of censorship and use government machinery, wherever available, to extend to school and college textbooks the same kind of misinformation, chauvinistic claims and denigration of other religions and cultures that we had seen during the past BJP led regime at the centre.

It is, therefore, necessary not only to condemn what has happened in regard to the Hindus, an alternative history, especially the pusillanimity of the publisher, but also to redouble our vigilance in regard to what is still to come.

The signatories of statement are:

Prof. D. N. Jha                Prof.Archana Prasad                 Prof. KesavanVeluthat

Prof. K.M. Shrimali         Prof. ShireenMoosvi                 Prof. UtsaPatnaik

Prof. IrfanHabib              Prof. C. P. Chandrasekhar        Indira Chandrasekhar

Prof. Rajiv Gupta            Prof. Mihir Bhattacharya           Prof. IqdarAlam Khan

Prof Mridula Mukherjee   BadriRaina                                Prof. Ramesh Rawat

Prof. PrabhatPatnaik        Prof. Amar Farooqui                 Prof. Saira I. Habib

Prof. ArjunDev                Prof. Anil Bhatti                        Sashi Kumar

Prof. Indira Dev              Prof. Shakti Kak                       M. K. Raina

Prof. AtluriMurli              Prof. ZoyaHasan                       Prof. J. M. Parakh

Prof. Anil Sadgopal         Ram Rahman                            Madhu Prasad      

Prof. JayatiGhosh            SohailHashmi                           Prof. RanbirChakraborty

Dr. P. K. Shukla              Girish Mishra                            MadanGopal Singh

Dr. Vishva Mohan Jha     Ashok Rao                               Dr.Lata Singh                 

MukulDubey                    Parthiv Shah                             VivanSundaram

Dr. BiswamoyPati           Prof. R.C. Thakaran                 Prof. R. Mahalakshmi

Dr. RakeshBatabyal