In dismissing as “libellous” the accusation levelled by three US-based historians that he had – in a 2017 essay in the India Foundation Journal – plagiarised earlier work by Prof Janaki Bakhle and Prof Vinayak D. Chaturvedi, Vikram Sampath, author of a two-volume biography of V.D. Savarkar, told The Wire last week that Bakhle “does not seem to share the opinion” of his accusers.
“Please do go through her review of the book in question on the India Today website, way back in 2019,” he wrote in an email. “It is a mixed assessment of the book, but nowhere have any allegations of plagiarism been mentioned by her. It is completely unimaginable that someone who is directly affected by such plagiarism from her work, if at all, and unlike this triumvirate, would not have raised a howler [sic] if she had found any part of her work being lifted with impunity. Hence, this is yet another smear campaign in the long list of hit jobs that have been done against me since quite some time now by vested interests whose only motive is to defame me personally and also devalue the scholarship of my work.”
In the defamation suit that he filed in the Delhi high court against his accusers – Audrey Truschke, Rohit Chopra and Ananya Chakravarti – Sampath made a similar claim. Justice Amit Bansal’s February 18 order – in which he injuncted the three historians from circulating their accusations till the date of next hearing, which is April 1, notes:
It is contented [sic] on behalf of the plaintiff that wherever he has taken extracts from the works of the aforesaid persons, he has cited/footnoted the same and has given due credit for the same. He further submits that Dr. Janki Bakhle has in fact reviewed the book written by the plaintiff in India Today Magazine and has no grievance with regard to any plagiarism.
On February 14, The Wire had reached out to Bakhle and Chaturvedi, who teach history at the University of California at Berkeley and Irvine respectively, to ask, “Does it appear to you, as the original author, that the charges levelled against Sampath by Truschke et al. – as far plagiarism and/or inadequate citation of your work is concerned – are correct?”
While Prof Chaturvedi’s response was received earlier and incorporated into The Wire‘s original story, Prof Bakhle’s response, received on Monday, is appended below.
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When I reviewed the first volume of Vikram Sampath’s biography of Savarkar, I focused on the book as a work of biography around a figure who has not received adequate scholarly attention in English. I did not think that plagiarism might be an issue, because I assumed that standard practices of citation and verification had been followed as part of the process of peer review and publication. I did, however, convey my evaluation of the kind of biographical arguments Sampath makes in that volume and I believe made clear that I have a host of reservations and criticisms of the work. Beyond that, the review has to speak for itself, as also my own book on Savarkar, which will be published soon and aims to be a broader intervention in the field of scholarship around Savarkar’s life and legacy.
Janaki Bakhle.
However, as an academic I need to make clear that plagiarism is a major violation of scholarly standards and protocols. I was not aware of, nor had I read, the 2017 publication until just recently, and have now compared it to my own essay, which was published as “Savarkar (1883-1966), Sedition and Surveillance: the rule of law in a colonial situation”, Social History, February 2010, Vol 35, No. 1 pp 51-75.
Significant portions of my own article appear without credit in Sampath’s “The Revolutionary Leader Vinayak Damodar Savarkar” published by the India Foundation Journal, July-August, 2017, pp 37-42. The reference to my essay in the bibliography of his essay appears thus: Bakhle, Janaki. ‘Savarkar (1883-1966), Sedition and Surveillance: the rule of law’, which is an incomplete and inaccurate citation.
Sampath has used my words in four of the five pages of his essay (pp 37, 38, 39, and 40). In this five-page essay, entire sentences of mine appear without quotation marks around them, a footnote, or citation. Sampath has claimed that it was a transcript of a talk he gave, not a scholarly work. And yet, the essay includes 13 footnotes, which give the clear implication that it was prepared for publication.
I cannot speak to the nature or academic standards of the journal. But given that my name does not appear anywhere in the text of the essay, and the only reference to my article is incomplete, this essay gives the impression that Sampath is claiming my ideas and words as his own, and would be understood as such by readers.
Indeed, a quick analysis using the program Turnitin reveals that 52% of his essay is in fact made up of unattributed use of words taken directly from either my essay, or that of Professor Vinayak Chaturvedi. This constitutes plagiarism by any definition. If such plagiarism is the unintentional result of shoddiness in writing and publication, the honourable course of action would be a public apology and a retraction by both Sampath and the India Foundation Journal to whom I am sending this letter.
I cannot speak to the allegations of plagiarism in Sampath’s biography of Savarkar. Those who are concerned should investigate the biography and its citations with care. This is required given the critical importance of the accurate representation of the ideas of Savarkar in the present day.
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See below for just the most obvious instances where my words are lifted verbatim and note that wherever square brackets [] appear, they enclose Sampath’s words:
Janaki Bakhle’s words from Social History article (JB/SH/2010, hereafter)
Vikram Sampath’s essay (VS/2017, hereafter)
JB/SH/2010, pg 54:
After the 1857 Rebellion, a diverse group comprising intellectuals, poets, mystics, philosophers, novelists, reformers and spiritual leaders from around the country cultivated a distinctly Hindu anti-colonial nationalist discourse that combined inward spiritual development with external political freedom. It emerged from the anguished belief that despite India’s ancient culture and civilization her heirs had allowed themselves to be defeated by a foreign country with a far inferior civilization. The spread of Western attitudes among the small growing middle class in urban colonial India only made matters more urgent.
VS/2017, p 37 (his first page)
[I argue here that the roots of this division could be traced back to the 1857 uprising after which] a diverse group comprising intellectuals, poets, mystics, philosophers, novelists, reformers and spiritual leaders from around the country cultivated a distinctly Hindu anti-colonial nationalist discourse that combined inward spiritual development with external political freedom. It emerged from the anguished belief that despite India’s ancient culture and civilization her heirs had allowed themselves to be defeated by a foreign country with a far inferior civilization. The spread of Western attitudes among the small growing middle class in urban colonial India only made matters more urgent.
JB/SH/2010, p 52
His affiliation with the extreme wing of Indian nationalism, however, was apparent even earlier when as a high school student he had organized a secret revolutionary society…
VS/2017, p 38
His affiliation with the extreme wing of Indian nationalism, however, was apparent even from his school days.
JB/SH/2010, p 56
There are few original documents concerning this society because the members destroyed them all to prevent them falling into the hands of the British.
He insisted that members read works dealing with major historical figures, biographies of Mazzini, Garibaldi, Napoleon Bonaparte…
VS/2017, p 38
There are few original documents concerning this society because the members destroyed them all to prevent them falling into the hands of the British.
He insisted that members [of the Mitra Mela] read works dealing with major historical figures, biographies of Mazzini, Garibaldi, Napoleon Bonaparte…
JB/SH/2010, p 57, 58.
Savarkar proceeded to discount all the usual colonial arguments about the causes of 1857: the greased cartridge, the economic motives of the elite, the annexation of Oudh…. Instead he argued that a nationalist ideology was the motivating factor behind the 1857 Rebellion
Savarkar intended to give India a history of her own, to change the subject of history from the colonial state to a national state. In his Introduction to the book he made clear that ‘history’ did important work for a nation and a national community, as he recognized it had done for England. He was going to do the same for India.
VS/2017, p 39
[he dismissed] all the colonial arguments of English historians about the causes of 1857: the greased cartridge, the economic motives of the elite, [or the doctrine of lapse etc] and instead [powerfully] argued that a nationalist ideology was [what motivated the uprising]
Savarkar [instead] intended to give India a history of her own, to change the subject of history from the colonial state to a national state. In his Introduction to the book he made clear that ‘history’ did important work for a nation and a national community, as he recognized it had done for England. He was going to do the same for India.
JB/SH/2010, p 59, 60
Savarkar’s actual revolutionary acts were significant, but not nearly as widespread or as successful as colonial officials or subsequent hagiographers have made them out to be. He despatched a few friends from Indian House to Paris to learn about bomb-making and while he had grandiose plans, as Koregaonkar’s statement suggests, for sending India House members to Belgium, Switzerland, and Germany for military training, they never materialized. He did, however, make copies of bomb manuals which he sent to India, along with a few pistols for political assassinations.
When caught, Kanhere implicated, among others, the Savarkar family. As a result, Savarkar’s older brother and some family friends were arrested and sentenced to transportation to life in the Andaman Islands. Savarkar’s younger brother was also arrested in connection with a different conspiracy case the same year.
Even as Savarkar was engaged in reading or smuggling bomb-making manuals and guns into India, his literary output and consequent ideological reach were much more dangerous.
VS/2017, p 39, 40
Actual revolutionary acts [which] were significant, but not [as much as is made of them]. Even as Savarkar was engaged in reading or smuggling bomb-making manuals and guns into India, his literary output and consequent ideological reach were much more dangerous.
…while he had grandiose plans for sending India House members to Belgium, Switzerland, and Germany for military training, they never materialized. He did, however, make copies of bomb manuals which he sent to India, along with a few pistols for political assassinations.
When caught, Kanhere implicated, among others, the Savarkar family. As a result , Savarkar’s older brother and some family friends were arrested and sentenced to transportation to life in the Andaman Islands. Savarkar’s younger brother was also arrested in connection with a different conspiracy case the same year.
JB/SH/2010, p 61
The unspoken fear in all the surveillance documents is that sedition and its effects were the real threat the colonial police had to contain, and to illustrate this …
VS/2017, p 40
The unspoken fear in all the surveillance documents is that sedition and its effects were the real threat the colonial police had to contain.