Joe Sacco’s excellent report from India, The Once and Future Riot, was published by Metropolitan Books in the US last year, but its publication in India has run into trouble. The book was to be distributed by Penguin India and in recent weeks, we have learned that the publishers have decided to withdraw it. Penguin India reportedly sent Sacco a several-page response seeking changes; Sacco has said that these changes included a demand for the removal of a line about the rise of “Hindu hegemony” in the country. (What is Penguin India thinking, if it is thinking at all? To remove a line about the growth and consolidation of “Hindu hegemony” in contemporary India is akin to removing the Himalayas from the subcontinent. After that, there is no there there.)
My report on the book and my conversation with Sacco has been published by Scroll. Click here.