Quote:
Originally Posted by QuantumIguana
It should be noted that the paper books aren't being destroyed world-wide, but just in India. The book isn't available in paper or e-book format in India, but it is available for sale outside of India in both formats.
I don't live in India, it's not my call what laws India has, and people in India will have access to the book, so I'm not going to get to disturbed by this. It's self-defeating, the author will lose sales, but gain a lot of publicity. Instead of suppressing the book, it unintentionally promotes it. I can't blame Penguin, I don't see that they had any real choice.
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The problem is that the book is not a work of fiction that the Indian government finds criminally offensive, but a history book that (at least purports to) documents facts.
This would be like having a law in the US making it illegal to document slavery in the US, or a law in Germany prohibiting publishing any record of acts by the nazi party while out of or in power, or Italy making it a crime to document any cases of pedophilia by the clergy.
(Not that banning fiction that ruffles feathers isn't really really bad, but banning the publication of historical facts is much worse.)