New Delhi: Authors Pankaj Mishra and Arundhati Roy have criticised Penguin Random House India for its decision to publish an updated version of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s book, Exam Warriors, amid the raging pandemic.
In a letter published in London Review of Books blog, ‘Age of anger’, author Panakj Mishra wrote to the CEO of the publishing house, Gaurav Shrinagesh, that Penguin Random House has “effectively chosen, in this bleak moment, to enlist in a flailing politician’s propaganda campaign by publishing and promoting Exam Warriors”.
“Certainly, as Modi’s mouthpiece, PRH seems a very unwelcome home for authors who see his regime as a calamity for India,” Mishra wrote.
According to a report in The Guardian, Arundhati Roy also questioned PM Modi’s educational degrees and said we don’t know “what (if any) exams this Exam Warrior took”.
“Publishing Modi’s Exam Warriors is a similar form of self-abasement, made more ridiculous by the unresolved mystery about Modi’s degrees — a BA by correspondence taken at the age of 28 and an MA in ‘Entire Political Science’ from a university in Gujarat that never offered such a course,” the report quoted Roy as saying.
She also said the Modi government and “its Hindu nationalist supporters” had put publishers and literary events under “massive pressure” over the last few years.
“Having bent and bullied almost every institution to their will, they now seek the respectability of being ‘mainstream’ authors invited to mainstream events. Many publishers and litfests have succumbed.”
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Penguin Random House responds
Responding to the letter by Pankaj Mishra, the CEO of Penguin Random House said the team of publishers and editors at the publication make independent publishing decisions ably backed by the sales and marketing teams. “This decentralized, independent structure enables autonomous publishing decisions as is true for all of Penguin Random House companies worldwide,” he wrote.
Earlier this month, Roy had also asked PM Modi to “step aside” over his handling of Covid-19 in the country.
Exam Warriors was first published in 2018 with the aim to help young students deal with the stress of exams. Its updated version is said to contain updated mantras for parents, awareness on topics like mental health, the role of technology, and time management amid the pandemic.
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