Laine: No enmity proof

Mumbai, April 26: Bombay High Court today set aside the Maharashtra government’s notification banning American historian James Laine’s book on Shivaji.

The order came on a petition filed by documentary filmmaker Anand Patwardhan, activist Kunda Pramila and lawyer Sanghraj Rupawate.

The Congress-NCP government had banned Shivaji — the Hindu King in Islamic India in January 2004, a few days after the Sambhaji Brigade, a right-wing group, stormed the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute and destroyed 18,000 books and over 30,000 rare manuscripts in protest against “disparaging remarks” in the book. Laine had conducted some of his research at the Pune institute.

They labelled the book a “Brahmin conspiracy” as the so-called offending passage says: “Maharashtrians tell jokes naughtily that Shivaji’s biological father was Dadoji Kondeo Kulkarni.” Kulkarni, Shivaji’s limbless servant, was a Brahmin.

The publishers withdrew the book in November 2004 and the author sent an apology, but these were not enough to stop the pillaging.

The Vilasrao Deshmukh government also banned Laine’s second book — The Epic of Shivaji — in January 2006, citing apprehensions about a repeat of the violence.

Deputy chief minister R.R. Patil, who is also the home minister, today said the government would study the judgment and file a special review petition in the Supreme Court.

The notification had alleged that the book promoted enmity between “those who revere Shivaji and those who do not”. It also said the book could hurt the sentiments of Shivaji’s followers and create a law and order problem.

The petitioners’ lawyer said Laine’s book did not contain “disparaging” or “scurrilous” remarks about Shivaji and did not promote enmity.

The high court’s verdict came after the Supreme Court had quashed criminal proceedings against Laine on April 9.

The court said “the very basis of the notification had been knocked out by the apex court order”. It added that the state had failed to produce any material to prove what the notification referred to as “those who do not revere” Shivaji and there was no evidence that the publication was likely to promote enmity between any groups.