Let me disclaim at the outset (I am not a Hindu in a fundamentalist sense, I am liberal and respect all religions and keep my faith as private as possible except on select festival days, when I erupt in joy on facebook).
I would like to break this long piece into four parts: First part, I will talk about the phenomena like Wendy Doniger who are creating careers out of midwifing the Hindu scriptures in ways that she and her non-Hindu readers like. Second part, I will talk about the amusing manner in which the web and authors imprinted by Penguin have got into a mindless crusade of supporting Wendy (I bet most of them haven't read the book) for the sake of supporting free speech (which itself is unclear to many who advocate for it). In the third part, I will discuss what may have led Chikki Sarkar's bosses at Penguin to withdraw the book; I will also put forth the economics of publishing writers like Wendy and the burdens of cross-subsidising her irreverence for Hinduism with best-selling writers of dissimilar baggage like say, Dr.Devdutt Pattnaik or Anita Nair (not the Padmashri author, the one who writes on Indian Mythology for kids under Puffin). Lastly, I will offer my two cents on whether such bans are justified and whether such bans are endorsed by Hindus and also whether Hinduism will outlast such ill-informed writers.
First Part
Wendy Doniger is not the first nor will be the last author to claim superior scholarship over Indology (the Study of India) or Hinduism. Throughout history, there were Indologists who learnt Sanskrit and made intellectual and financial capital out of interpreting the vast body of Hindu literature from the Laws of Manu to the Rig Veda to the Ramayana and the Mahabharata and the Bhagwad Gita. These include in no certain order: Max Muller, William Jones, Philip Goldberg, Gavin Flood, Klaus Klostermaier, Asko Parpola, TJ Hopkins, Brian K Smith, AL Basham, M Stutley, John Stratton Hawley, Richard Burghart, Raymond Brady Williams, George Michell, Alistair Shearer, Madeleine Biardeau, DF Pocock, Ken Wilber, Alduous Huxley, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Arnold Toynbee and even Sir Richard Burton. There were also many writers-philosophers originating from the Indian subcontinent who have steered Hinduism into streams of clear interpretations. Most notable among them include writers like S Radhakrishnan, C Rajagopalachari, RK Narayan, Bibek Debroy, Jawaharlal Nehru, Bankimchandra Chatterji, Anand Coomaraswamy, Raja Rammohan Roy, Nirad C Chaudhuri, Osho, Makarand Paranjapee, TN Madan, KM Munshi, KM Panikkar, VD Savarkar, Mahadev Desai, Mahatma Gandh, RC Dutti and philosopher saints like Swami Vivekananda, Aurobindo Ghosh, Swami Abhedananda, Swami Ranganathananda, Dayanand Saraswati, Paramhamsa Yogananda, Maharshi Mahesh Yogi, Swami Hariharananda. Many living saints continue to re-interpret wiser and modernly relevant insights in Hinduism through their discourses like Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev, Swami Prajnananda and Swami Sukhbodhananda. If you do not like to read in English, there's greater talent in verbal discourses albeit with sometimes faulty logic people like Chaganti Koteswara Rao, Swami Paripoornananda and countless others in Indian vernacular language. These are writers who respected the original works, translated them with the diligence of a Checklist-driven surgeon, honored the spirit and philosophy of the original letters that carried the messages through the ages and sanctified and enriched the body of works that are enshrined in the hearts of billions of Hindus who are traditionally not self-conscious about religion as an isolable component or aspect of their world-view and their way of life.
Having said that there have been genuinely agitated writer-scholars who have taken up crusades against the banalities that created stress to those oppressed under the onslaught of traditions that smack of inhumanity - the caste system, the enfeeblement and disempowerment of women, notions of untouchability and brahminism as being superior to other castes - which kept more people in shackles of poverty, illteracy and regress. Into these categories fall some notable writers of Indian origin, namely, Dr.BR Ambedkar, AK Ramanujan, Kancha Ilaiah, Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, Swami Dharma Theertha (a.k.a Parameswara Menon). These writers had genuine points to make about the forces that are eroding faith in Hinduism because of a class-perpetration of Brahmins or male bastion preachers who bind women and lower-caste sections into bleak submission and duress.
How is Wendy Doniger different? She is an Indologist who has had numerous books on Hinduism in sole and co-authorships. She is an influential professor in an American University whose scholarship has reached peak recognition. She has been both persuasive and persistent with her theses on writing as the sole arbiter of myths about Hindusim. It is another matter that she also writes profusely about ancient and modern myths that accost civilizations that survived or surround us today. She writes brilliantly with luminous prose and imaginative prowess about the myths of Hercules, the myths of super-heroes (of Warner Bros. creation) and the myth of Harry Potter (which will also enter the next generation of modern myths that are welded into world consciousness). But it is the current book "The Hindus: An Alternative History" that is caught in the eye of the storm five years after its publication.
By her own admission in her latest book "On Hinduism", Doniger writes why the book withdrawn by Penguin should be a non-issue for Hindus. And I quote: "I had written all my other books for an American audience, primarily for my students. That was one reason why I was totally blindsided by the passionate Hindu response to my book "The Hindus: An Alternative history". It hadn't occured to me that Hindus would read it. I had figured, the Hindus already knew all about their own religion, or at least knew as much as they wanted to know, or in any case didn't want to learn anything more from an American woman (I was right about that last point, but in ways I had not foreseen). I was therefore pleasantly surprised, at first, that Hindus read "The Hindus", but then appalled that some of them read it so confrontationally, or did not read it at all but just parroted what others are saying about it." So, you see, even Doniger never had an iota of the tumultous response her book got until one gentleman from Shiksha Bachao Andolan took her on and filed a quiet litigation against the author and the publishers for the umbrageous litany of liberal and factually incorrect interpretations of Hindu Gods and Goddesses.
If you surf the Amazon reader reviews, you will see a six page summary of all the erroneous points of the book "The Hindus" by one Vishal Agarwal. These are mis-representations in Wendy's book about the chronological dates, events and people ranging from Lord Ram, Mahakavi Kshetrayya, Guru Gobind Singh, Saint Chaitanya, Saint Kabir, Adi Sankaracharya, Hakka and Bukka of the Vijaynagar empire etc. For example, in the case of Adi Sankara's debate with Bharti, wife of Mandan Mishra, when the latter questioned Adi Sankara on issues related to conjugal responsibilities, Adi Sankara requests a month's time to imbibe the experiences of a householder. He then enters the body of a king who is dead, experiences the physical pleasures and responsibilities, comes back to the debate and wins against Bharti. This episode is twisted by Doniger to imply that Adi Sankara, alongwith the king had mated with hundreds of women by turns and even experienced conjugal pleasures with the debater's wife Bharti. Blasphemy! The litany of such erroneous facts and sensational twists are available as a document in scribd for download.
Besides, there are upending narratives that border on sexual fantasies about the pantheon of Hindu Gods and Goddesses - which strike at the very roots of our sacred beliefs. For example, Ganesha, the Elephant God is assumed to have a trunk and an over-grown body in order to have oral sex. Doniger even suggests an oedipal complex and possibilities of the unthinkable relationship between Parvathi and her son. Shiva is portrayed as an erotic ascetic, and tales of Anasuya and Shakuntala are sprinked with dosages of narratives usually found in the books of sleaze. With all this utter nonsense, no wonder Wendy Doniger had met her match in an undeserving work, that was never intended to be read by Hindus by her own admission, in a defamatory suit filed by the plaintiff. The forum filed it invoking two powerful sections of the Indian Penal Code especially section 295A which invokes criminal liability when you write stuff that can insult relilgious sentiments. This section, even if purposively introduced by the British to protect Islam from being victimised by vagrant Hindus had unleashed unintended consequences that may check scurrilous writing masquerading as free speech. Some of the most learned legal experts in their commentary on the section opine that this was introduced by the British with a view to preserve the fabric of the society of a particular religion in its bare essentials, which if allowed to be insulted can lead to catastrophic consequences including the dissolution of the society of the said religion.
I think Penguin has feared the invocation of this section more than the garble around free speech that can technically put it out of business when it recalled the book of Wendy Doniger to be pulped. This incident may not be the only one in a trend of growing pespectives that distort religion by either oversexualizing or overpoliticising the subject. In 1995, another professor, Jeffrey Kripal who was mentored by Wendy Doniger wrote a book "Kali's Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the life and teachings of Ramakrishna". The book won awards in the US but was condemned by Hindus especially the Ramakrishna Monk order for suggesting erotic overtones in the life of revered Ramakrishna. Two monks of the said order - Swami Tyagananda and Pravrajika Vrajaprana have rebutted Kripal's insinuations most methodically in a book "Interpreting Ramakrishna: Kali's Child Revisited." published by Motilal Banarsidas. But that was published 15 years after the publication of Kripal's book. In case of Wendy's works she has been rightfully getting brickbats for her irresponsible and shoddy authorship. She once had eggs thrown at her at a conference even if her book was one of the five finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Prize in nonfiction (it did not win).
It is evident that Wendy Doniger's book is ill-conceived, full of half-baked knowledge about how to interpret an ancient religion from the lens of a 21st century perspective, and grossly inappropriate, containing salicious interpretations of a religion that can never be exhaustively explained by either perspective or modernity. But Hinduism has always withstood the onslaught of time, the invasions of three fourths of mankind including the Greeks, the Ottomans, the Mughals, the British and now the many forces that are breaking up India.
There is an opinion amongst the activists that there will be more likes of Wendy Doniger and Jeffrey Kripal as long as there is a dearth of native Hindus in religious studies departments outside India. In most academic departments studying the theological foundations of the great religions of the world, there is ample representation from Christians, Jews and Muslims to counter distortions of those traditions but Hinduism, it is averred, lacks protection. Except for scholars like TN Madan, Arvind Sharma, Vasudha Narayanan and now the fiercest of them all, Rajiv Malhotra, most misbegotten interpretations tend to be perpetuated unless outsiders come to the rescue or as in this case, the law has forced the hand of imbecile writers like Wendy to commit hara-kiri.
Second Part
Let's leave Wendy for the time being. I wonder what is happening to some of the renowned writers who are on the rolls of Penguin India to take up matters with them as if the heavens are falling and their brains are beaten out of bounds. Without picking on all of them, as I still respect some of them, I will pick only a few of them to highlight my points of view. Let me start with Arundhati Roy, the favorite pin-up girl of uncle Vinod Mehta who writes on everything from hydroelectric projects to the tribal displacement to leftist evangelism, who thinks she has the combined intellect of Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein and can write better than both of them and also Ernest Hemingway. Her flip-flop on various issues makes her one of India's most over-rated intellectual with the exception of P Chidambaram! All she knows is to write verbosely, use high-falutin phrases, hyperbola most of them newly minted from the Sub-editor's desk and figments of imagination far removed from the world of Economics and Reality. If the centre-rightists have also listened to the gist of her epic essays by now, India would have been the poorest SAARC nation on earth by now. So much for development from Arundhati Roy, now what do we expect anything less from her on free speech and the attempt to sensationalize religion! I guess she wants Penguin to publish all books without fact-checking, without de-composing for authenticity, without editing - like her own essays. About Siddharth Varadarajan, the less said the better. Here is an ex-editor of "The Hindu" who has been kicked out of the paper for gross violation of financial and editorial responsibilities.
I would like all the authors who are rushing to drop out of Penguin's pedigree to think twice before taking an impulsive decision. A few unsolicited tips for them: One, please read Wendy Doniger's book in full and decide whether it is a worthy book to give company as a Penguin author. Two, understand that a Publisher is like a producer of a films: they have the choice of casting and hence a publisher will decide what to publish. An author will get his or her 10-15 per cent royalty and remain catalogued as long as the publisher gets a good night's sleep. No publisher feels comfortable with thoughts of vicarious and criminal liability sitting on their reserves. In case of Wendy Doniger's book, the petitioner moved court that required Penguin to demonstrate whether "it respects all religions worldwide." Clearly, the book's contents prove they don't. Thirdly, if you are prepared to walk out of Penguin, please remember there are options outside the world's largest publisher: you can go to rivals like Harper Collins or Hatchette or Rupa (No, no, Rupa Publishers is next: They are raking it in with Wendy Doniger's book "On Hinduism") or better still, Self-publishing. But do not sensationalise more than what is unwarranted. Remember: even in films, actors like Amitabh Bachan or Salman Khan or Shah Rukh Khan or Aamir Khan have said "NO" when it comes to scenes that might upset millions of fans who know are not just watching a movie. Remember, when Star TV took a decision in circa 1990s to cut out every scene that shows explicit kissing or sexual intimacy, it was a decision taken in the interests of the culture of the largest TV country in the world where even a grown-up son doesn't touch his mother. When the decision was taken, nobody threw tantrums that,"We are quitting". Know when to fight, and know when to quit but if you don't know the difference between the two, stay calm and let the wind blow.
Third Part
It is important to understand there could be more than the eye why Penguin has taken a decision to withdraw a popular book in America. It is easy to say that this could be because of an upsurge in a Modi wave that Penguin fears might make it face greater trouble. There are more reasons than that and it could be pure economics at play here thats outside the reaches of the "Free Speech" experts.
One, Penguin India is a crucial wing of the Penguin Random House - which after the recent merger has become the world's biggest publishing combine. The company which owns Penguin Random House, Pearson plc is a phenomenal media giant that publishes, inter alia, the world's leading business newspaper "The Financial Times" besides an imprint which is exploding with opportunities in print everywhere, especially in South Asia. Pearson is also a leading academic publisher with growing interests in India, they are are closer to inching to the top spot in educational catalogues and worthy of meatier assignments in vernacular languages with academic boards and universities that design the curriculum. They cannot risk the millions of profits that can accrue if they stay in the reckoning in India for the sake of a reckless author's title. "Financial Times" is a moderate but intensely focused business newspaper that has been fighting to get a foothold in Indian newspaper industry for decades. They probably know that erring on the side of Wendy may bring more trouble from established centre-right newspapers like the Times of India (which publishes The Economic Times) and the Indian Express (which publishes The Financial Express). The numbers are too staggering for Penguin to lose sight of: 60% of the total market is the Education market, 42 million students in 50,000 private schools studying and learning English, schoolbook market of around Rs.3500 crores, with 343 public-funded universities, 15000 colleges. All this in a country where a third of the population is still illiterate and the 21 official languages excluding English makes for a dispersed education system and book marketplace which no sane businessman publisher will let go of. Again, remember India's per capita annual spending on books is still low - about $1.50 compared with China's $3 and USA's $60 and UK's $58.
Two, in a market where 16,000 publishers exist, and Rs.70 billion of turnover is counted by the publication of 70,000 titles annually, India is the third biggest Engish-speaking market outside of the US and the UK. Too much at stake again for Penguin to turn a nelson's eye to the foibles of one writer.
Three, Penguin's own imprint in India and its various incarnations - Puffin, Penguin portfolio, Viking, etc. are all carrying interesting titles by Indian writers who are rooted in Indian traditions and values but breaking new ground in narratives about Indian epics and folk tales which form the bedrock of Hinduism. Gurucharan Das writes on Mahabharata's continuing relevance. Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik writes most profoundly on Indian mythology. Anita Nair writes the best-known tales of Hinduism for children. Sanjeev Sanyal writes on India's lesser known stories about history that defines today's geography. Bibek Debroy has just completed eighty per cent work of translating into English the most original version of the Mahabharata yet attempted by any scholar, vetted by the Bhandarkar Oriental Institute. Besides the above, a galaxy of writers like Arundhati Subramanyam, Makarand Paranjapee, Tirthankar Roy, Pankaj Mishra, VS Naipaul (who gives out inconsistent views on India),Mark Tully and authors like Ruskin Bond, RK Narayan who wrote on the Indian folk tales still form a huge backprint, whose genuine adherence to Indian values, culture, religious diversity and ethos cannot co-habit the work of a shallow writer of the kind that Wendy Doniger is. Put simply, Penguin cannot afford to have one writer who contradicts everything else that readers like of the books written by its other writers.I am sure these would have got weighed in before Penguin took the decision to pulp her book.
Four, the founder of Penguin paperbacks Allen Lane was once travelling to India for three months to see why Pelican books were selling more than the Penguins in India. He travelled extensively by train, visiting kings and politicians, called on Nehru and admitted to the "pitiful conditions" endured by the great mass of Indians. He was surprised why Indian students don't buy enough of Penguin books. Reason: the Indian student was more interested in saving money to secure an education and "he was not inclined to waste his time on poor escapist literature, he wished to use his new knowledge to the full by reading such books as might make him fitted for a better job, a higher rank in the Civil service." The thought stayed with Allen Lane for a long time as he decided what books to publish in a poor country. I suspect somewhere, this is what may have prompted Penguin to publish a number of titles in basic English. Allen Lane also told someone that his travels in India had made him realize that "one of the greatest needs was for a book on Comparative Religion." I wonder if this was a tipping point for Penguin owners to realise they didn't want anything to upset a religious community or a section.
Five, there is a difference between the books that were withdrawn of late and books that were banned in recent times and the book that is now withdrawn now. Amongst the books that were withdrawn, of late, most of the books except one are books about businessmen or politicians. "Red Sari" is about Sonia Gandhi. "Beautiful Forevers" has a chapter that unfolds the saga of the money-spinning educational group of Arindham Chaudhary. "The Descent of Air India" is about the role of politicians in running Air India to ground. A new book by Jaico Publishers seeks to unravel the mysteries of the Sahara Group, again banned before release. Years back, Hamish McDonald's book "The Polyster Prince" was withdrawn well before the release because of the all-pervading influence of Mukesh Ambani and his father late Dhirubhai Ambani. The book was sold on the streets of Mumbai and Bengaluru before its contents got incorporated in a bigger book "Ambani & Co." by the same author. Point is, these are books which are being withdrawn not because of fears of a backlash of public opinion or intolerance of Indians but due to the all-powerful influence of a few mighty businesspeople or empire-builders. This trend is definitely disturbing for those who want to find out the truth. They are, however, different from the books banned for religious reasons, say, "Satanic Verses" or books which were written without historical evidence but speculative imagination like say, "The Great Soul" the book about Mahatma Gandhi which was banned in Gujarat because the writer speculated on the homosexuality of the father of the nation. Please note that I am not against the ban of books which rip off the truths about the cookie that crumbled - a Sahara or a Reliance or an IIPM notwithstanding. But I certainly think books on religious matters need a different paradigm of scrutiny and evaluation of the wider repurcussions because it is a matter of faith. If you say that Ram's father is a sex-addict because he had three wives or that Jesus of Nazarath had intercourse with several women or Prophet Mohammed was a cunning businessman, I surely have a problem because one should respect all religions. In that sense, a publisher's job is to promote religious harmony, not promote one upmanship of one religion over another. Penguin is in that sense, mature and truest in its intentions of recalling a folly that could sink a business empire built on decades of loyal readership world-wise.
Fourth Part
Where does this leave the debate on Hinduism being under a cloud due to mischievous writers casting aspersions and twisting tales to suit their or others' hidden agendas? Nothing happens.
Hinduism has had a history of productive interaction with three other religious traditions that originally arrived here from abroad, and have had their own Indian histories, namely Christianity, Islam and Zoroastrianism. With the Portugese in India came the linkages between Christianity. With Islamic invasions from the Ottomans and the invasions of Nadir Shah, Islamic heritage and the Zoroastrian faith have also entered the Hindu consiousness. After four hundred years of the Moghal Rule and three hundred years of the British rule, Indian Hinduism has become entwined with the traditions followed by the other two great religions. You will find therefore, Sufi infuences on Indian music, symphonic melodies on Karnatik music and vedic chants in Medak Churches besides an inseparable interplay of architectural, economic and societal practices (will talk more on this later). India is also home to three other great religions of the world - Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. Understanding this is the crux of the greatness of the way of life that our heritage has given.
Hinduism has also never ceased to change and grow and remains a world religion attempting to cope with the challenges of modernisation and secularization and of the diaspora. Anthropologists and sociologists, historians and scholars who are fascinated by the inclusive aspects of Hinduism have wasted no time except for the likes of Wendy Doniger in understanding and unleashing a considerable body of published work on the models of empirically-grounded holistic description of a Hindu community. Successive reformers throughout history have been chipping away the undesirable elements that are holding back a nation on the move - Dalitisation, women stereotyping and untouchability and ushering in elements that helped Hinduism survive in its many avatars - life-cycle rituals, domestic and temple worship, seasonal festivals, pilgrimages, values of auspicousness and purity, world affirmation and renunciation, strategies of coping with life, death and suffering and the role of charishmatic precepters and the institutionalisation of religious activity, preservation of the tradition and innovation.
By that count, most Hindus will be least interested in reading Wendy Doniger's book (and by her own confession as pointed at the outset) because a Hindu is just what a Hindu does - meaning all of the above activities in the previous para and are also unified by a set of metaphysical beliefs about god, nature and human beings that are distinctively Hindu. For all those who try to challenge these beliefs because of a lineage and tradition that is beyond just one holy book, as in the case of Hinduism, by distortions and over-analysis, Wendy Doniger's book withdrawal should serve a right dose. But even if it doesn't, it matters an ant's ass for the Hindus. They will still build temples for monkey gods and elephant gods, they will still fast and stay up all night for the upcoming Mahasivarathri festival even if worshipping a phallic symbol and they will still be religious about our faith. That is the right thing to do. But it is wrong thing to let this Pyrrhic victory of book withdrawal go into the credit of hard-liner, right-wing Hindus, RSS-style Hindus who are intolerant of other faiths. It is important to note that at a time, when most of the Western countries are witnessing an increase of nonbelievers - that number just doubled over the last decade to 15 per cent of the population - in India, the most prosperous and the and the poor are becoming "faithful" God-believers. What we should ensure, if we can is to ensure that secularism should mean equal distance between the state and all the various religions of Indian people and not by giving exemptions to one religion and partiality to one religion.
The future of Hinduism is brighter than before and that holds good whether a bigot storms into power or not because the Hindus are tolerant, inclusive, and patient with the ingots of naughtiness that non-Hindus throw at them.
Lastly about free speech, I quote Nigel Warburton in response to what others say about allowing Wendy Doniger's book: In Ray Bradbury's dystopian "Fahrenheit 451", a novel in part inspired by the Nazi book burnings of the 1930s, the central character's job is destroying books. The title refers to the temperature at which paper combusts. Getting rid of awkward thoughts simplifies life - in this imagined future anything that could interfere with mindless happiness is incinerate; anything that anyone finds offensive ends up in ashes. In the end the people are scarcely aware that they have lost anything. That is another possible future." Yes, that is a possible future but reserve it for those that lampoon your faith not otherwise. But if Penguin had actually not withdrawn the book even that would have been alright for the Hindus because it wouldn't have got read anyways. As someone says, "even B-grade authors should be published because how else will you know they are B-grade?".
