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Prof M.G.S.Narayanan has denied a report which appeared in a newspaper stating that the one man review committee, appointed by the ministry, had accused Narayanan, the then chairman of the ICHR, of ‘‘total lack of intellectual and academic integrity by becoming party to the disgraceful act of withdrawal of the two volumes written by historians Sumit Sarkar and K.N.Panikkar’’.
In a statement issued here on Saturday, Narayanan said, ‘‘The whole report is couched in the language of party politics.’’
He said as chairman of the ICHR from July 2001 to December 2003, he was not party to the withdrawal of any volume of the ‘Towards Freedom’ project.
The said volumes were already in the press for a long time.
‘‘The said volumes were not ‘written’ by the said scholars, as represented wrongly by the reporter. This was a Council Project, started in 1973 and the Council had spent crores of rupees from public funds over many years for these and other volumes. The Council had employed editors and provided them all facilities, and paid the salary for their research assistants. The editors employed by the Council were expected to select some from the large number of documents procured by the Council, to classify them, and to provide an Introduction. Preparation of the Introduction was an important, nay crucial, part of the editorial work.
‘‘Several historian members of the Council complained that the two volumes had gone to press without being cleared for publication by the Research Committee of the Council and approved by the Council. This was shocking. I went through all the minutes and files of the Council, but there was nothing to show that the Council’s approval had been sought or obtained. It was my firm view that the Council was not responsible for the editor’s political attitudes, but had the responsibility to see that the editors had done their work, at least written the Introduction.
‘‘It was reported that Dr. Panikkar’s volume had gone to the press in a hurry, when there was a change in the ministry, without the Introduction that was to be an essential part of the volume. Members rightly suspected foul play, and more such pranks. The Council asked the printers to send back the manuscripts for perusal. They refused to do so, and this naturally increased the suspicion about foul play. Finally, when the manuscripts were brought back after several months, after the court’s intervention, the worst suspicions were confirmed. Dr. Panikkar’s volume had been sent to the press without the Introduction. Dr. S.Gopal, the General Editor, had failed to notice this glaring defect or preferred to ignore it.
‘‘I knew that several ‘Right’ historians were hostile to these editors. What was really surprising was that several so-called ‘Left’ historians also wanted to prevent the publication of these volumes during the period of the BJP rule. Perhaps they also felt that they could blame the Council for delay in publication. Much pressure was put on me, but as long as I was the chairman I refused to oblige such people. I refuse to allow the Marxist Party or any other party including the ruling parties, to interfere with our programme. I also maintained that the General Editor or Editors, whoever they were, had no right to send the manuscripts for publication in the name of the Council, until they were submitted to the Council and approved in the proper manner.
‘‘Dr. Panikkar did not appear to be interested in publication. He did not give the Introduction. He and his friends were apparently afraid of being exposed for cheating the Council by submitting the script without the Introduction. The disgrace, if any, remains with him for politicizing the issue continuously to cover up his own irregular action. I challenge the one man committee to come out with records to disprove my statement that they (the manuscripts) ‘‘had been sent to the press without clearance from the Research Project Committee of the Council.
‘‘The report has also quoted a statement
of the officer that ‘all the records the Council made available to the
Committee clearly showed that the manuscripts were duly processed before
they were sent to the press’’. This is a lie. If they found any such records,
let them publish them. Having gone through all the files, and consulted
all the officials concerned, I have not come across any such records’’,
the statement added.
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