Shashwat Mishra – Mumbai Uncensored, 15th February 2022
Learned Historian and Author Vikram Sampath has approached the Delhi High Court and filed a defamation suit against Audrey Truschke and other over false and defamatory remarks made by them against the author. The controversy erupted after a letter surfaced on twitter on Sunday which alleged that the historian has committed “plagiarism” in his essay on Indian Revolutionary Leader Veer Savarkar written in the year 2017.
The letter accusing Sampath for ‘plagiarism’ was directed towards Royal Historical Society, UK, of which Sampath is a member. The letter was written by three academicians from universities in the United States, including Ananya Chakravarti, Rohit Chopra and Audrey Truschke. The letter demanded stern action to be taken against the historian. Vikram Sampath on the other hand, has already given citations and credits which he has referred to in his essay.
Reacting to the said controversy, Sanjeev Sanyal, Principal Economic Advisor tweeted in support of Vikram Sampath and clarified that the evidence given in the letter doesn’t relate to that of Sampath’s writings, but the transcript of the speech which he gave at the India Foundation in 2017. To quote Mr. Sanyal, he said, “Second, the supposedly plagiarized sentences are from two scholars Vinayak Chaturvedi & Janaki Bakhle. They are both mentioned in the references, and the former is mentioned clearly in the text. Is it plagiarism when the source is mentioned prominently?” he asked. Sanyal further added, “Third, Janaki Bakhle reviewed Vikram’s book on Savarkar. She had both positive & negative comments, but nowhere did she mention plagiarism.”
Sampath is being constantly attacked by a certain section post his two-part Biography on Veer Savarkar titled as: Savarkar: Echoes From A Forgotten Past, 1883–1924 and Savarkar: A Contested Legacy 1924–1966) which were published in the year 2019 and 2021 respectively.
