I alerted Bloomsbury to the growing online controversy over Delhi Riots 2020, as did several other Bloomsbury authors, I did not call for its banning or pulping and have never supported the banning of any book. It is now being published by another press.

I was, of course, angry and disappointed to see this happen, and I am deeply troubled by what it foretells for free speech in India in the present, and steadily worsening, political climate... I do not blame Penguin Books, India. Other publishers have just quietly withdrawn other books without making the effort that Penguin made to save this book [The Hindus: An Alternative History]. Penguin, India, took this book on knowing that it would stir anger in the Hindutva ranks, and they defended it in the courts for four years, both as a civil and as a w:Lawsuitcriminal suit. They were finally defeated by the true villain of this piece – the Indian law that makes it a criminal rather than civil offense to publish a book that offends any Hindu, a law that jeopardizes the physical safety of any publisher, no matter how ludicrous the accusation brought against a book.

The literary world must take a stand [to stop Bloomsbury publishing the book]. This is not about cancel culture. This is about defending literature from fascism. This is about standing up against religious divide, hate speech, islamophobia and false history.

A case in which the English version of a major book by a renowned Muslim scholar, the fourth Rector of one of the greatest centres of Islamic learning in India, listing some of the mosques, including the Babri Masjid, which were built on the sites and foundations of temples, using their stones and structures, is found to have the tell-tale passages censored out; The book is said to have become difficult to get;... Evasion, concealment, have become a national habit. And they have terrible consequences... It was a long, discursive book, I learnt, which began with descriptions of the geography, flora and fauna, languages, people and the regions of India. These were written for the Arabic speaking peoples, the book having been written in Arabic. ... A curious fact hit me in the face. Many of the persons who one would have normally expected to be knowledgeable about such publications were suddenly reluctant to recall this book. I was told, in fact, that copies of the book had been removed, for instance from the Aligarh Muslim University Library. Some even suggested that a determined effort had been made three or four years ago to get back each and every copy of this book. ....Such being the eminence of the author, such being the greatness of the work, why is it not the cynosure of the fundamentalists’’ eyes? The answer is in the chapter “Hindustan ki Masjidein”, “The Mosques of Hindustan”. ... Each reference to each of these mosques having been constructed on the sites of temples with, as in the case of the mosque at Benaras, the stones of the very temple which was demolished for that very purpose have been censored out of the English version of the book! Each one of the passages on each one of the seven mosques! No accident that. .... why would anyone have thought it necessary to remove these passages from the English version-that is the version which was more likely to be read by persons other than the faithful? Why would anyone bowdlerise the book of a major scholar in this way?...

Many of my books are banned in Bangladesh. My book was banned in West Bengal too. Its government not only banned my book, it forced me to leave the state too. The new government ban­ned the release of my book Nir­basan in 2012 and a few months ago forced a TV channel called Akash Ath to stop telecast of a mega serial I wrote. The serial was about women’s struggle and how three sisters living in Calcutta fight aga­inst patriarchal oppression to live their lives with dignity and honour. She (Mamata Banerjee) ban­ned me to app­ease some misogynist mullahs.

No newspaper or periodical worth its name in India will publish what I write in the lines that follow. Not because the subject matter is seditious..., but simply because it defies the Emergency imposed on this country by Muslim theologians and politicians backed by 'secularist' intellectuals and politicians and riotous Muslim mobs and plain terrorists.

But the book could not get a mainstream publisher and I had to work very hard. The big mainstream publishers did not want to touch it... And it became an instant best-seller. They refused to put the cover image of a broken India even though I explained that I found it in the office of an African-American professor in Princeton, who was part of the Afro-Dalit movement. They found it too provocative.

I'm arguing this should not be published, not because of the threats but because of the offence that it has caused to the majority of Muslims.
They have a right to expect some genuflection towards what they feel. To publish a paperback would cause an unnecessary distress to a large and significant and vulnerable section of our society.

All books written in Sanskrit and Marathi, whatever their subject matter, were seized by the Inquisition and burnt on the suspicion that they might deal with idolatry. It is probable that valuable non-religious literature dealing with art, literature, sciences, etc., was destroyed indiscriminately, as a consequence. These activities had been initiated in Goa even before the establishment of the Inquisition. For instance, there is a letter dated November 28, 1548, in which D. Fr. Joao de Albuquerque proudly reports his achievements in that direction.”

Politicians are all on the same platform when it comes down to me. I think it’s because they think that if they can satisfy the Muslim fundamentalists they will get votes. I believe I am a victim of votebank politics. This also shows that how weak the democracy is and politicians ask votes by banning a writer ... Even though I am not staying there, she (Banerjee) has not allowed my book ‘Nirbasan’ to be published. Also, she has stopped the broadcast of a TV serial scripted by me after Muslim fundamentalists objected to it. She is not allowing me to enter the state… This is a dangerous opposition ... I wrote to Mamata Banerjee. But there was no response to that… No I am not going to write to her again. I do not think she will consider my request. I feel very hopeless because I expected something positive. I think when it comes down to me, she has similar vision like that of the Left leaders.... I do not consider India as a foreign country. The history of this country is my history. It’s the country of my forefathers. I love this country and in Kolkata, I feel at home because I can relate that place to my homeland. ... I have sacrificed my freedom and have been sacrificing for a big cause… All these (problems) are because of my writings. I could have stopped writing against fundamentalists and possibly the bans would have been removed and I had got back my freedom and allowed to enter my motherland again. But I will never do that. ... I have spoken of humanism and equal rights for women and secularism stating that religion and nation should be treated separately. One should not get confused with nation and religion. Rules should be made based on equality, and not on religion. ... I know that only by writing I will not be able to change an entire society. The laws need to be changed. Equal rights cannot be established in a short time, it requires a long time and huge efforts ... I have got many awards but the best is when people come forward and tell me that my writings have help them change their vision,... I do not think I would have been treated in the same manner if I was born there (Europe). I am a writer, not an activist... I write with a pen and if you have any problem why do not you pick up a pen to protest.... The surprising thing in this part of the world is that they have picked up arms against me because I have expressed my views. I have never enforced my thoughts on anybody ever, then why they are trying to kill me. I am not a supporter of violence.

He didn’t bother to answer his wife and opened the newspaper instead. There was a cholera outbreak in the slums, more nuclear sabre-rattling from the governments of India and Pakistan and a riot because a Bollywood film had gone too far. Apparently, Indian morals were being compromised. Singh smiled happily. They just didn’t make the newspapers like this in Singapore.

Take two recent incidents that show Twitter India’s clear abrasiveness towards the patriotic people. Everyone knows how politically ill-willed Twitter India is towards an ideological section of society. The first was the blocking of @trueindology’s account for uploading an original quote taken from a book published by the Indian Council of Historical Research that described Akbar’s happiness on killing thousands of Hindus. Twitter India took “punitive action” against the handle. Why? No one dared to question the move. Soon after, another incident took place. This time, the platform decided to block @Amulcoop’s account for uploading two very beautiful and strong banners one showing the famous Amul girl standing up to the Chinese ... People, often the secular and the de-Indianised elite, may say, “But Twitter India is handled by Indians.” Yes, that is true but they work for a foreign company whose headquarters is in America. It has nothing to do with the Indian sensibilities and feelings. The British empire in India also had munshis, chowkidars, darbaris, mansabdars during moguls who were all Indians. But they worked for a foreign power who had nothing to do with the Indian soul and sensibilities.

Distortive or even totally false reporting on communally sensitive issues is a well-entrenched feature of Indian journalism. There is no self-corrective mechanism in place to remedy this endemic culture of disinformation. No reporter or columnist or editor ever gets fired or formally reprimanded or even just criticized by his peers for smearing Hindus. This way, a partisan economy with the truth has become a habit hard to relinquish. And foreign correspondents used to trusting their Indian secularist sources have likewise developed a habit of swallowing and relaying highly distorted news stories. Usually, the creation of a false impression of the Indian communal situation is achieved without outright lies, relying rather on the silent treatment for inconvenient facts and a screaming overemphasis on convenient ones. (...) So, moral of the story: feel free to write lies about the Hindus. Even if you are found out, most of the public will never hear of it, and you will not be made to bear any consequences.(...) These days, noisy secularists lie in waiting for communal riots and elatedly jump at them when and where they erupt. They exploit the anti-Hindu propaganda value of riots to the hilt, making up fictional stories as they go along to compensate for any defects in the true account. John Dayal is welcomed to Congressional committees in Washington DC as a crown witness to canards such as how Hindus are raping Catholic nuns in Jhabua, an allegation long refuted in a report by the Congress state government of Madhya Pradesh and more recently in the court verdict on the matter. Arundhati Roy goes lyrical about the torture of a Muslim politician's two daughters by Hindus during the Gujarat riots of 2002, even when the man had only one daughter, who came forward to clarify that she happened to be in the US at the time of the “facts”. Harsh Mander has already been condemned by the Press Council of India for spreading false rumours about alleged Hindu atrocities in his famous column Hindustan Hamara. Teesta Setalwad has reportedly pressured eyewitnesses to give the desired incriminating testimony against Hindus in the Gujarat riots.

Not long ago, all the copies of the Hindi edition of my book, Understanding Islam Through Hadis, were confiscated by the police. ... The civil liberties wallahs, otherwise a vocal lot, have been eloquently silent on this and similar bans. But then they are active only in certain preferred directions, on behalf of certain preferred sections and for the benefit of certain preferred ideas.