Penguin moves to placate Hindu fundamentalists

[ignorantianescia]

Penguin India has recalled copies of the history book The Hindus by Wendy Doniger in order to end a legal claim against them by some hindutva fringe goons.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-26184819 (link sort of NSFW)

Penguin India has defended its decision to recall and destroy copies of a book on Hinduism by a prominent US scholar.

In its first comments on the row Penguin said it had to respect the laws of land, such as those which make it a crime to offend religious feeling.

Penguin also said it had a duty to protect its employees against threats.

Wendy Doniger's book The Hindus: An Alternative History had been the subject of a legal challenge claiming the text was offensive to Hindus.

Hindu campaign group Shiksha Bachao Andolan brought a civil case in 2011 against Penguin India, arguing that the book contained "heresies" insulting to Hindus.

Penguin reached an apparent out-of-court agreement with the group, details of which were circulated online earlier this week.

South Asian religion scholar Laurie Patton has detailed the background of the laws in question in a critical essay.

www.religiondispatches.org/archive/culture/7614/publisher_withdraws_history_of_hinduism__amid_protest/ (link sort of NSFW)

The news has hit most of the major papers in India and the United States. Under threat from a small group called Shiksha Bachao Andolan, Penguin Press has withdrawn Wendy Doniger’s The Hindus: An Alternative History.

Rather than challenge sections of the Indian penal code which make it a crime to insult religion or religious beliefs, Penguin India has agreed to pulp all remaining copies of the book in India, and declare respect for all world religions.

Another way to tell the story: A major international publishing house with financial resources at its disposal has destroyed its own intellectual product in response to a Hindu group who appealed to a law that was written in the colonial era and enforced by the British.

There are several key points contained in this small historical vignette. The first is the fact that the original ruling by the judge stated that satire in its own right did not promote enmity between groups. In fact, satire of religious actions and beliefs right is a long tradition in India. The 11th century Kashmiri Sanskrit poet Kshemendra, in works such as Samaya Matrika, Kalavilasa, and Narmamala, satirizes brahminical and Buddhist norms with rapier wit. (Kshemendra, by the way, also wrote serious devotional and poetic works.)

The second point is contained in the words of Muhammed Ali Jinnah, the lawyer and politician who later became the founder of Pakistan. In insisting on protection for works of history, and bona fide and honest criticisms of a religion, he stated a basic principle we should all share: works of history should not be subject to legal proceedings.

The boldface in the quotes above is by me.

[peteri]

Feb 26, 2014 7:39:14 GMT ignorantianescia said:

Penguin India has recalled copies of the history book The Hindus by Wendy Doniger in order to end a legal claim against them by some hindutva fringe goons.
                        

The articles are a little strange because they seem to be afraid of telling the reader what the main bones of contention are.

according to <http://news.outlookindia.com/items.aspx?artid=828444>
the objections are:

The petition, filed through advocate Monika Arora, said "the book is a shallow, distorted false and non-serious presentation of Hinduism which contains highly objectionable passages regarding father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi, youth icon Swami Vivekananda, Hero of the first war of independence Mangal Pandey and freedom fighter Rani Laxmi Bai of Jhansi".

One of the petitioners, 81-year-old Batra who is also the convener of Shiksha Bachao Andolan, had said, "The author and publisher of the book have intentionally hurt the religious and national sentiments of millions of Hindus and Indians."

"The book has tarnished the image and defamed the father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi by stating that he asked people to eat beef and himself ate beef. The book states that cows had nothing to do with Hinduism...," Batra said.

"The book also defames youth icon Swami Vivekananda when it states that on being asked what he will eat, Swami Vivekananda replied 'give me beef'," the petition said.

I can see why this would be offensive to Hindu "fundamentalists" (Defined as Hindus who think that Hindus don't eat beef and who venerate Gandhi and Vivekananda), but my question is: are the claims at all likely to be true, and if technically true are they put in some kind of reasonable context? Neither article seemed the least bit interested in defending the propositions that Gandhi and Vivekananda were beef eaters who advised other Hindus to do likewise.



edit: 10 hours later.

Reading further, it looks like i was at least somewhat misled my my hasty reading of the first article I read from outlookindia. The objections seem a bit nuttier than I had thought.


see:<http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?289468>

Still, I am not convinced that all censorship is inherenlty evil, and it would be nice if articles opposed to censorship would still do their best to explain what the objections were, why people are offended and what merit there is in the text objected to. If a work is defended as being satire, and thus properly protected speech, I'd like to know how exactly it is supposed to be satire. People can be easily offended by satire, but most of the things that offend people are not satire.


Peter.

[ignorantianescia]

Feb 27, 2014 3:22:13 GMT peteri said:

Feb 26, 2014 7:39:14 GMT ignorantianescia said:

Penguin India has recalled copies of the history book The Hindus by Wendy Doniger in order to end a legal claim against them by some hindutva fringe goons.
                        

The articles are a little strange because they seem to be afraid of telling the reader what the main bones of contention are.

Perhaps it's not so much fear as the fact it clearly was not relevant to the essay by Patton and that the BBC might just have opted not to include these details.

Feb 27, 2014 3:22:13 GMT peteri said:

according to <http://news.outlookindia.com/items.aspx?artid=828444>
the objections are:

The petition, filed through advocate Monika Arora, said "the book is a shallow, distorted false and non-serious presentation of Hinduism which contains highly objectionable passages regarding father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi, youth icon Swami Vivekananda, Hero of the first war of independence Mangal Pandey and freedom fighter Rani Laxmi Bai of Jhansi".

One of the petitioners, 81-year-old Batra who is also the convener of Shiksha Bachao Andolan, had said, "The author and publisher of the book have intentionally hurt the religious and national sentiments of millions of Hindus and Indians."

"The book has tarnished the image and defamed the father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi by stating that he asked people to eat beef and himself ate beef. The book states that cows had nothing to do with Hinduism...," Batra said.

"The book also defames youth icon Swami Vivekananda when it states that on being asked what he will eat, Swami Vivekananda replied 'give me beef'," the petition said.

Thanks for that. The historical claims may well be arguable and I do not know. The surrounding rhetoric doesn't bode well however. How do they know the book was made with ill intent? Is intentionally hurting the "religious and national sentiments of millions of Hindus and Indians" wrong? Sati is a repugnant practice and whoever practices it ought to be jailed. That might arouse some sensibilities and was deliberate, but isn't wrong by my standards. Whereas these claims they make about the scholarship aren't repeated by some scholarly reviewers I'll refer to later in this post.

Feb 27, 2014 3:22:13 GMT peteri said:

I can see why this would be offensive to Hindu "fundamentalists" (Defined as Hindus who think that Hindus don't eat beef and who venerate Gandhi and Vivekananda),

That's not the definition I had in mind. I had actually included an allusion to what I meant, you may consider it an implicit working definition of "Hindu fundamentalism": adherents of the hindutva movement, that is those who seek to advance the discrimination of Muslims and Christians, want to demolish mosques built on (presumed) locations of ancient Hindu sanctuaries and intend to limit the freedom of religious affiliation by discouraging conversion. Calls to violence against minorities aren't unheard of either.

It seems not unfair to me to call such people fundamentalists. If it is, it's sooner unfair to some non-violent Christian fundamentalists. And the group in question have clearly been described as "fringe" by respected news sources and does appear to be a hindutva group.

Feb 27, 2014 3:22:13 GMT peteri said:

but my question is: are the claims at all likely to be true, and if technically true are they put in some kind of reasonable context? Neither article seemed the least bit interested in defending the propositions that Gandhi and Vivekananda were beef eaters who advised other Hindus to do likewise.

I haven't read the book, but some scholars who have reviewed it (Kolff and Gilmartin) neither sought to critique it on these points nor thought the work was tripe, though they certainly had their issues with it, mostly from the Mughal period onwards. Patton also didn't, for that matter. Sure enough there exists bad scholarship, but I see no reason to suppose it is the case here - all claims it is malicious are made by fanatics. The scholars I referred to indicate it is a valuable contribution.

Feb 27, 2014 3:22:13 GMT peteri said:

edit: 10 hours later.

Reading further, it looks like i was at least somewhat misled my my hasty reading of the first article I read from outlookindia. The objections seem a bit nuttier than I had thought.


see:<http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?289468>

Still, I am not convinced that all censorship is inherenlty evil, and it would be nice if articles opposed to censorship would still do their best to explain what the objections were, why people are offended and what merit there is in the text objected to. If a work is defended as being satire, and thus properly protected speech, I'd like to know how exactly it is supposed to be satire. People can be easily offended by satire, but most of the things that offend people are not satire.


Peter.

I'd only consider total censorship good in cases of slander, criminal material or incitement to violence. Aside that reasonable limits are tolerable for some things, like a ban on swastikas in public places. But other than that government censorship pretty much is immoral (rejecting to publish something as a medium isn't) and the burden of proof should be on whoever argues that censorship should be imposed. So I'd agree with you that not all censorship is evil, but I prefer specificness on this subject.

I definitely agree it would be nice if they did detail it, but there's nothing amiss if they don't include it if the relevance is doubtable.