MUMBAI, INDIA, April 30, 2004: The Maharashtra government today rejected historian James Laine’s apology for his controversial book on the legendary Maratha warrior Shivaji. The state said in court today that it would press criminal charges against the author despite his assurance that he would edit those references to Shivaji and his mother Jijabai that various groups have found objectionable from future editions of his book – Shivaji, Hindu king in Islamic India. The controversy over the book erupted in January this year after the Marartha group, Sambhaji Brigade ransacked the Bhandarkar Institute in Pune, one of the institutes Laine had acknowledged in his book. In his book, Laine had referred to the rumours about Shivaji’s parentage, a reference which attracted the anger of several Maratha groups in the state. And even though the publishing group Oxford University Press withdrew the book immediately, the controversy refused to die down.
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