Author relieved that India drops chargesST. PAUL, Minnesota, April 11, 2007 -- Although no longer under threat of being jailed in India for his book on the Hindu king Shivaji, scholar James W. Laine is unsure whether he will return. Laine, interviewed at Macalester College in Minnesota, said in an interview that he was pleased that the India Supreme Court nullified the provincial-level prosecution against him. He called the Supreme Court, delivered two days ago, a surprise, After three years of prosecution, he said, he had almost given up ever returning to India. Laine had visitedthe western India state of Maharashtra frequently since 1977 for his research. He has not been back since authorities accused him of fomenting sectarianism. Conviction could have meant three years in prison.
Laine, a professor of religious studies at Macalester, said he had thought his scholarship in India was over. With criminal charges, a visa would have been impossible. Laine spoke of the importance of Maharastra to him personally and to his work: "I'm not as at home in any other part of India as I am in Maharashtra." At the same time, Laine said, he was mindful of several death threats. Even so, he added, he took comfort in knowing the authorities in Maharastra cannot appeal the decision of the Supreme COurt in his case. |
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Yale Press gift to revive translationsNEW HAVEN, Connecticut, April 10, 2007 -- Yale University Press has received a "very significant" gift to establish a new series dedicated to foreign literatures in translation. The series, named for donors Cecile and Theodore Margellos, will concentrate on works of cultural and artistic significance previously overlooked by translators and publishers, said John Donatich, director of the Yale press. Also, Donatich said, the series will include fresh translations of canonical works of literature and philosophy. The amount of the gift was not announced.
Donatich said the new books, called the Margellos World Republic of Letters series, will help reverse the trend against literary translations resulting from "virtual censorship" that insulates our culture." The first Margellos books, due in 2008, will include fiction by the Chinese writer Can Xue and poems of the Syrian-born poet and essayist Adonis.
India halts prosecution of U.S. authorNEW DELHI, Indian, April 9, 2007 -- The India Supreme Court ordered that prosecution against a Macalester College professor in the United States be halted. The court said that authorities in the western state of Maharashtra had been evaluating James W. Laine's academic book, Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India, out of its own context. The Supreme Court said that the book must be read as a whole: "One cannot rely on strongly worded and isolated passages for proving the charge, nor indeed can one take a sentence here or there and connect them by a meticulous process of inferential reasoning." The book, issued by Oxford University Press in 2003, angered some caste and religious groups, who said Laine insulted Shivaji, a 17th-century Hindu king. Laine was charged with deliberately stirring sectarian strife. The Supreme Court, however, found that Laine was exercising his reason and analytical skills in writing in the book.
Problems for Laine erupted in January 2004 while he was home in Minnesota. A mob ransacked the research center in the city of Pune, where Laine had done much of his work. Hundreds of rare manuscripts were destroyed. Pune police subsequently charged Laine and Oxford University Press with "wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause a riot." Oxford voluntarily pulled all copies of the book from the Indian market. |
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