NEW DELHI: The central point of contention between Congress leader Sonia Gandhi and Penguin Random House India was the publisher’s demand to retract passages containing her “frank” assessment of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and references to mishandling of “Chinese incursion” during his tenure, a senior party functionary said. According to the functionary, the passages were not based on “hearsay” but on Sonia’s “relevant interactions” and assessment.
The functionary described the remarks as “candid” saying Sonia had written about what she had observed and experienced in her dealings with the prime minister as “both as the leader of a political party and a person in public life”.
The functionary said the issue was not about routine fact-checking, but with “substantive changes to the political content of the memoir”. The functionary said the concern was that substantially “altering” or “removing” those passages would change the “character” of Sonia’s account and “assessment” of contemporary political events.
Penguin denied that it decided against publishing the memoir because Sonia refused editorial changes, and said it is “not the publisher of the book in India”. “Any suggestion that Penguin Random House India decided not to publish 'Belonging' because the author declined editorial changes does not accurately reflect the circumstances,” it said on Friday.
Congress leader Ashok Gehlot alleged that Penguin India wanted changes to portions concerning “Modi, the RSS and China’s ‘occupation of Indian territory’.”