Press Reports
DELHI, INDIA, November 5, 2003: Famed publisher Motilal Banarsidass has decided not to reprint Paul Courtwright’s controversial book on Lord Ganesha. Publisher Rajeev Jain wrote the following e-mail to Dr. Rao, who brought the book to his attention. “Firstly, I am obliged that you have gone through the book and made us aware about the extremely objectionable passages including the cover of the book. In fact, the book was published in 1985 by Oxford University Press and we never heard any adverse comments, hence without getting that reviewed we undertook the publication since it was originally published by an internationally established publisher. We did not care to go through the book thinking that this would be academically well acceptable. We are extremely sorry that the content of the book has hurt the sentiments of our beloved readers and the community at large. We offer our sincerest apologies to all our readers. We have already withdrawn the circulation of the book from the market and discontinued the sale. Further, we ensure that no such lapse shall ever occur in future. This need not be reiterated that MLBD has ever published any such offensive matter knowingly in the entire history of their publication for the last 100 years. Being one of the best-known publishers devoted to Hinduism and ancient Indian culture we would never think to tarnish the image of any religion. This has been an omission on our part and we are really apologetic to the readers for its publication. May we request you to kindly circulate our letter of apology to various religious organizations, centres, and the Hindu community at large.”