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H-ASIA
February 20, 2000
Report of protests regarding ordered suspension of publications of
Professors Sumit Sarkar and K. N. Panikkar by the Indian Council of
Historical Research
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From: "Dr R.Gopinath" <r.gopinath@vsnl.com>
In response to the Government-controlled Indian Council of Historical
Research's decision to order the suspension of the publication of two
volumes on India's freedom struggle hundreds of historians and academics
from the four universities in Delhi protested in front of the ICHR
office today. [posted to H-ASIA Feb. 17] The following is a letter
signed by many of Delhi's historians to protest against the BJP's
continuing attack on those not conforming to their communal and
anti-democratic views.
Dear Mr. Vajpayee,
The latest order from the ICHR directing the Oxford University Press to
stop midway the publication of two volumes on the freedom struggle by
two of India's leading historians, Prof. Sumit Sarkar and Prof. K.N.
Panikkar, has shocked the academic community in the capital.
Prof. Sumit Sarkar of the University of Delhi and Prof. K.N. Panikkar of
the Jawaharlal Nehru University had been commissioned to write a volume
each for the Indian Council of Historical Research's multi-volume series
on the Freedom Movement in India under the "Towards Freedom" Project.
They had completed their work and the typescripts were in press when the
Oxford University Press received the letter directing it to suspend
production of the two volumes and return them to the ICHR for review.
This was done without informing the respective authors and without the
knowledge of the General Editor of the series who alone is authorised to
approve the manuscripts. The authors were informed by the Oxford
University Press. Moreover, as per reports in the press, it appears that
the letter was written bypassing even the ICHR and at the behest of the
HRD Ministry.
We see this entire move first and foremost as a blatant attempt to
stifle secular historical scholarship by imposing censorship on the work
of two of India's leading social historians. We also see it in the
context and logic of the increasing attacks on minorities and on
artists, film-makers and intellectuals who have remained committed to
the vision of a secular and democratic India, a vision that was
inscribed into the Constitution and a vision without which this country
could not have won freedom from colonial rule.
We, the teachers of the four universities of Delhi, strongly protest
against this despicable attack on freedom of scholarship and urge you to
direct the ICHR to immediately retract its order to stop publication of
these two volumes.
R.Gopinath
Dept of History
Jamia Millia Islamia
New Delhi
 Humanities & Social Sciences Online 
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