Penguin Books India pulps academic book on Hinduism because it offended Hindus

[Secularpakistani]

Hndu people are so atheist kind

But they become religious extremists so quickly against christians and muslims when it comes to their so called hinduism.

 

[Chronos]

Bade Bhai. . . you are asking the question to a wrong person here. . . . . their interpretation on anything is highly biased. . .
I'll show an example. . .
watch the video on this thread. .
Every one should watch this vedio - try to respect other religions

Now watch the interpretation of the video on page-2 post # 23
Every one should watch this vedio - try to respect other religions | Page 2

Just because Masjid wasn't shown in the video . . . . . . . . . assumption was about hatred towards Muslims( though a few happy Muslim girls and some ppl offering namaz was clearly shown in the video )

@Ravi Nair @Ayush @Dem!god @levina you guys should also visit the thread i mentioned and tell me if my observations are right or not . .

@Alpha1 you too

Your post SUCKS! just like your Avatar

kidding! though the video ended up caricaturing non-religious westerners

 

[Levina]

Bade Bhai. . . you are asking the question to a wrong person here. . . . . their interpretation on anything is highly biased. . .
I'll show an example. . .
watch the video on this thread. .
Every one should watch this vedio - try to respect other religions

Now watch the interpretation of the video on page-2 post # 23
Every one should watch this vedio - try to respect other religions | Page 2

Just because Masjid wasn't shown in the video . . . . . . . . . assumption was about hatred towards Muslims( though a few happy Muslim girls and some ppl offering namaz was clearly shown in the video )

@Ravi Nair @Ayush @Dem!god @levina you guys should also visit the thread i mentioned and tell me if my observations are right or not . .

@Alpha1 you too

Well you know what???
Haters are gonna hate....
I havent watched the complete video...will do that in the evening.I did read a couple of posts on that thread.
frankly I haven't understood why is our nation called intolerant towards minorities???
We are INDIA officially and we have not named it Hindustan for some reason.
And @chak de INDIA @Ayush told me that bronxbull is a lady not a man.

 

[Chronos]

But they become religious extremists so quickly against christians and muslims when it comes to their so called hinduism.

Lack of education, and often lack of interaction. And poverty.

Violence often happens in India like convulsions, brief and brutal.

Basic premise is this. Al Qaeda in no way represents majority of Muslims. Same case with Hindus who kill in the name of their religion.

@Secularpakistani if we aren't killing each other over religion, it will be over gangs, race and ethnicity.

Human are quite ingenious when it comes to inventing excuses for mass murder.

 

[Robinhood Pandey]

Yur post SUCKS! just like your Avatar

kidding! though the video ended up caricaturing non-religious westerners

Even you suck . . but you charge for that. . ( me too Kidding )

but the guy who started was her boy-pherend

Well you know what???
Haters are gonna hate....
I havent watched the complete video...will do that in the evening.I did read a couple of posts on that thread.
frankly I haven't understood why is our nation called intolerant towards minorities???
We are INDIA officially and we have not named it Hindustan for some reason.
And @chak de INDIA @Ayush told me that bronxbull is a lady not a man.

I did that. . . ??

I don't know. . . we have a Secular constitution . . . .we have a secular Nation. . . . more than enough for the people to understand our law of Universal acceptance

P.S- I'm ready phor another Rantings thread

 

[Dem!god]

Bade Bhai. . . you are asking the question to a wrong person here. . . . . their interpretation on anything is highly biased. . .
I'll show an example. . .
watch the video on this thread. .
Every one should watch this vedio - try to respect other religions

Now watch the interpretation of the video on page-2 post # 23
Every one should watch this vedio - try to respect other religions | Page 2

Just because Masjid wasn't shown in the video . . . . . . . . . assumption was about hatred towards Muslims( though a few happy Muslim girls and some ppl offering namaz was clearly shown in the video )

@Ravi Nair @Ayush @Dem!god @levina you guys should also visit the thread i mentioned and tell me if my observations are right or not . .

@Alpha1 you too

I have seen that video and it's pretty disturbing.......you can also watch rinki kumari video on you tube..she was forcibly converted......
religion is something very personal and should not be judged.......

 

[Bombermanx1]

Strange i got to know about the books when it is banned only....Dude.....Hndu people are so atheist kind that hardly 10% people might have read our Holy Book Geeta, so who really care about some author write some crap...

These kind of banning should not be promoted at all...If people like it then they will read...otherwise no one will read the book...This is a stupid idea...

Even atheists have self respect, tell a chinese that chinese culture and their people are such and such they will hit you in your face.Why is it that we as hindus have to take it easy when others dont?

 

[livingdead]

@Anonymous how can a book that does not talk about a living person be slanderous...libel laws apply to individuals not member of a group

 

[Dem!god]

Well you know what???
Haters are gonna hate....
I havent watched the complete video...will do that in the evening.I did read a couple of posts on that thread.
frankly I haven't understood why is our nation called intolerant towards minorities???
We are INDIA officially and we have not named it Hindustan for some reason.
And @chak de INDIA @Ayush told me that bronxbull is a lady not a man.

Ahhh... I will tell you what....no other nation in world is as tolerant as India...the only nation where you can find people of all major faith.....a place where 4 major religion were born(I am glad we both concur on this point.)......
I dare any one if he/she can show if a minority can become president/prime minster/general/ and be in all high posts in their country.....
there is a wave of propaganda going on against india in many countries and this book may be the outcome of that...
many westerns come to india with prejudice mind and and write to prove their prejudice......

 

[anonymus]

@Anonymous how can a book that does not talk about a living person be slanderous...libel laws apply to individuals not member of a group

I was talking in general terms as to whether courts should have authority to decide on matters relating to free speech or not.

But coming to the point of slander, it has nothing to do with whether a person is alive or dead. It is defined as a crime of making a false statement damaging a person's reputation.


The particular book was not written under the title of fiction where author may take creative license to do whatever he/she wants.This was an academic work which was written with a claim of being factually correct so it is incumbent on author to prove veracity of her works if challenged by academia or court.


If i go around claiming that dominos is using bull semen instead of cheese on it's pizza, i may be written off as a nutjob but if a publication does so and is proven to be wrong, they would have to pay damages depending on jurisdiction.

 

[temujin]

I was talking in general terms as to whether courts should have authority to decide on matters relating to free speech or not.

But coming to the point of slander, it has nothing to do with whether a person is alive or dead. It is defined as a crime of making a false statement damaging a person's reputation.


The particular book was not written under the title of fiction where author may take creative license to do whatever he/she wants.This was an academic work which was written with a claim of being factually correct so it is incumbent on author to prove veracity of her works if challenged by academia or court.


If i go around claiming that dominos is using bull semen instead of cheese on it's pizza, i may be written off as a nutjob but if a publication does so and is proven to be wrong, they would have to pay damages depending on jurisdiction.

Thanks..now that's put me off pizzas for the rest of my life

 

[Dubious]

who questioned?

If I had to name 1 I would have already mentioned him ....

Seriously!!!!!!


Had Indians gone on a rampage across India demanding Death to Author or passed Death fatwas and tried to storm US Embassy?


The book is not banned. Publisher opted for out of court settlement with litigant probably because they could not defend content of the book in court.

Seriously,Islamists suck at analogies.

@RFS_Br It is for you also.

@hinduguy @Ravi Nair

While any type of "Ban" is reprehensible, the knee jerk reaction of lot of Indians to condemn this judgement shows their intellectual immaturity.

Penguin Books India has agreed to withdraw from sale all copies of a book that takes an unorthodox view of Hinduism, and will pulp them as part of a settlement after a case was filed against the publisher.

Enough said!

I didnt talk about violence so why are you being soo edgy?

 

[BATMAN]

What ever happened to the secular claims of Indians over defence.pk

 

[amitkriit]

What ever happened to the secular claims of Indians over defence.pk

What happened? Did somebody issue a fatwa against the author or the publisher? The publisher cared about it's reputation and legal standing and hence withdrew the book as part of the "out of court settlement". It was proven beyond doubt that crap was being sold in the name of "authentic research". There was nothing authentic about this research.

 

[nangyale]

Why did Penguin recall a book on Hindus?

Wendy Doniger said she did not blame her publisher Penguin India for withdrawing her book The Hindus

"Now here's this book. And there will be more. After half a century of studying and engaging with Hinduism, I'm not about to be silenced by a few (bad) eggs," academic Wendy Doniger wrote in her latest book On Hinduism, published last year.

Doniger, who teaches at the University of Chicago and has written nearly half a dozen books on Hinduism, including a translation of the Kama Sutra, was writing about how her 2009 book The Hindus: An Alternative History quickly became a lightning rod for Hindu anger.

Doniger wrote that bloggers had accused her of attacking Hinduism and sexualising Hindus, flooded Amazon with their "lurid opinions of the book" and sent her obscene and threatening emails. There was even a protest outside the US embassy in Delhi calling for the book, which was climbing the best-seller non-fiction list, to be banned. The book had also prompted a legal challenge from Hindu groups and attracted at least two separate criminal complaints.

But Tuesday's news of her publisher Penguin India deciding to recall and destroy all remaining copies of The Hindus is being seen as the unkindest cut of all.

The publisher appears to have come to an out-of-court agreement with a little-known Hindu campaign group called Shiksha Bachao Andolan (Save Education Movement), which had filed cases against the book.

The man behind the campaign is Shiksha Bachao Andolan leader Dinanath Batra, a former teacher and school principal. After retirement, he told a newspaper, he began to devote his time to a "mission to see distortions removed from books taught to schoolchildren".

Since then, he says, he has filed some 10 lawsuits involving "objectionable passages" from various textbooks. He filed another demanding an essay on Ramayana by the late poet and scholar AK Ramanujan be dropped from the history syllabus of Delhi University. That was followed by a legal notice to a newspaper for publishing a story on Hindu terrorism. Then he trained his guns on the Doniger book.

Mr Batra finds the cover of Doniger's book "vulgar"

"The book is in a bad taste right from the beginning," Mr Batra told a BBC Hindi colleague on Wednesday. "If you see the front page [cover], the picture there is also objectionable since it portrays a deity in a vulgar pose. The book is slanderous and even facts have been distorted."

The Hindus is a magisterial 779-page work that attempts a narrative that is different to the one constituted by the famous texts in Sanskrit, the literary language of ancient India.

Doniger writes that it also tells an alternate history to "show how much the groups that conventional wisdom says were oppressed and silenced and played no part in the development of the [Hindu] tradition - women, untouchables [Dalits]- did actually contribute to Hinduism". Reviewers who liked the book described it as "history as entertainment" and "staggeringly comprehensive". They praised Doniger's "vast erudition, insight, graceful writing laced with gentle wit".

Mr Batra doesn't think so.

He finds it objectionable that Doniger writes in the book that independence hero Mahatma Gandhi had a "habit of sleeping beside girls young enough to be called jailbait in the United States"; and that 19th Century Hindu monk Swami Vivekananda "set himself against all forms of caste distinction and advised people to eat beef".

Mr Batra's pride is also hurt by Doniger's assertion that Maharashtrian queen Lakshmi Bai "claimed loyalty to the British" and sought their help when a local rival to the throne invaded her kingdom. And he also does not believe Doniger when she writes that "there is no Hindu canon", and that ideas about major issues such as vegetarianism, non-violence, even caste, are "subjects of a debate, not a dogma".

The fact that a top publisher has acceded to the demands of a fringe Hindu group has come as a shock to many. (Penguin has refused to comment so far.)

"This is deeply disappointing," historian Ramachandra Guha tweeted. "Penguin should have appealed in a higher court."

Hardline Hindu groups have often protested against what they perceive to be an affront to their deities

Journalist and commentator Swapan Dasgupta said he was "very uneasy" about Penguin's decision. "Ideas and academic studies, however contentious, can't be handled by censorship."

Doniger has, however, has been kinder to her publisher.

She said in a statement that she did not blame Penguin Books, which had made an effort to save the book by defending it in the courts for four years - both as a civil and criminal suit - unlike other publishers, which have quietly withdrawn books.

What's seen as a bigger worry is the erosion of India's liberal tradition.

Academic Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes that the country's reputation as a bastion of liberal values is "dimming by the day".

He makes the point that the courts have also failed liberal India "because of a law that signals that it is open to banning books", a point Doniger also makes in her statement. Mr Mehta despairs that liberal India has also been "silenced" by "professional offence mongers". He blames the educators for the "extraordinary failure of the project of liberal education".


Mr Mehta writes: "Wendy Donniger could not have damaged Hindus. But if liberal India dies, Hinduism will die as well. It's a frightening message for one of the world's largest religions."

Soutik Biswas
Delhi Correspondent