Penguin India has had the dubious record of pulping Indologist Wendy Doniger’s book under pressure; it also listed and then disowned the book authored by India’s former Army chief Gen. M.M. Naravane (retd), and also backed out from publishing Joe Sacco’s graphic novel on the Muzaffarnagar riots
Reacting to a report in the Indian Express on Friday, 28 August, Penguin Random House India in a statement denied that it was the publisher of Sonia Gandhi’s much-awaited Belonging – A Journey of Love, scheduled for a global launch on 10 November by American publishers Alfred Knopf. Ritu Sarin’s report in the Indian Express claimed that Penguin India had backed out after the author refused to change or delete portions recommended by the publisher.
In a statement, however, Penguin India virtually admitted that it was to publish the book in India. ‘As a publisher, it is both our prerogative and our responsibility to fact check and provide authors with recommendations that are in the best interests of their books,’ the statement read. It also gave away the fact that it ‘remained willing and keen to publish the book’.
Congress leaders rubbished the alibi and pointed out that Penguin Random House India is the Indian arm of Alfred Knopf. Once Knopf had finalised the text and undertaken to publish and launch the book, for the Indian arm to claim that it had found factual inaccuracies in the text was not tenable, they said.
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