After a lawsuit was brought against the publisher by religious groups, Penguin Books India has agreed to withdraw The Hindus: An Alternative History by Wendy Doeniger from the Indian markets, and to destroy all remaining copies it has in stock. Dina Nath Batra of Shiksha Bachao Andolan group filed a suit in 2011 with five others, asking for the book to be withdrawn because it was written with "a Christian missionary’s zeal" to denigrate Hinduism and show it in a poor light. “This book is disrespectful of our gods and goddesses,” Bathra said.
Commentators have been baffled by the publisher’s decision to agree to withdraw Doeniger’s book, as Penguin has defended controversial publications before. The most famous case is probably Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, which Penguin published in 1988. In 2009, chief executive of Penguin group in London, Peter Mayer, said about the controversy around Rushdie’s novel:
“The elimination of divergent points of view is incompatible with the basic tenets of free societies. We chose to frame the argument as one not only respecting the central importance of free speech, but transcending the case of this one book.”
Doeniger who is a respected scholar of Hinduism (and not actually a Christian) commented:
“Penguin has indeed given up the lawsuit, and will no longer publish the book. Of course, anyone with a computer can get the Kindle edition from Penguin, NY, and it’s probably cheaper, too. It is simply no longer possible to ban books in the age of the Internet. For that, and for all the people who have expressed outrage over this, I am deeply grateful.”
Penguin has not officially commented on the withdrawal, but copies of the document where the publisher agrees to recall all the copies of the book in the Indian Territory have been posted online. In the document, Penguin also agrees to stop selling, publishing and distributing the book in India, and that the remaining copies of it will be 'pulped'. The agreement also reads:
5. The Second Party [Penguin Books India] submits that it respects all religions worldwide
