The James Laine Affair: Terrorising Scholarship

The Maharashtra government’s notifications of 2004 and 2006 banning James Laine’s Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India on the ground that it fuelled “hatred between communities” was struck down by the Bombay High Court on April 26. Earlier last month, the Supreme Court had quashed criminal proceedings against the author, holding that what was written in the book did “not constitute an offence under which the first information report against Laine was lodged”. The government had claimed that the book “promoted enmity” between “those who revere Shivaji and those who do not”, but failed to identify the group – “based on religion, caste or community” – which did not revere Shivaji. But following the high court’s judgment, the Shiv Sena supremo, Bal Thackeray directed his sainiks to burn copies of the book in public. A group of Shiv sainiks barged into Oxford Book Store in Mumbai and warned the staff not to stock copies of the book. And, in an editorial on April 28 the Sena mouthpiece Saamna threatened: “Who will have the courage to sell the book…Samajhnewale ko ishara kafi hai” (for those who get the message, this hint is sufficient). Clearly, there is a need to rescue Shivaji’s biography from the grasp of such thuggish outfits; the Shiv Sena even carries his name and claims his legacy. Indeed, Laine had hoped that he would “contribute in some way to a richer understanding of this great man, and rescue his biography from the grasp of those who see India as a Hindu nation at war with its Muslim neighbours”. The prospects of getting closer to this, it now seems, are distant.

Laine genuinely admires Shivaji, but he wanted to get a glimpse of the man beneath the myth; he wanted to demystify the hero. But demystification however means nothing to the Sambhaji Brigade, named after Shivaji’s son or the Shiv Sena or indeed the Maharashtra Congress or Nationalist Congress Party whose leaders are, it seems, not given to reading and absorbing books. They merely took some of Laine’s statements out of context and called for the banning of the book. The thuggish and undisciplined Sena of course had to go several steps further. The organisation singled out those who had been thanked by Laine in the acknowledgements; the historian Shrikant Bahulkar was assaulted and his face was blackened by goons. Not to be left behind, Sambhaji Brigade ruffians, supported by the NCP, stormed into the library of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI), also acknowledged by Laine, and engaged in arson and destruction that gutted priceless manuscripts. But, the government could not care less; it charged Laine with disturbing the peace! The then union human resource development minister, Murli Manohar Joshi deplored the book, while the then prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee endorsed an all-India ban. And, when the election campaign began the latter even promised that he would bring in Interpol to arrest Laine in the US!