Penguin Random House is one of the largest publishers in the world. An imprint of PRH is publishing Sonia Gandhi’s memoir in the United States, with an initial print run of 100,000 copies. Penguin India, however, has refused to publish the memoir in India.
This is extraordinary. The book was going to be a massive commercial success, even if there had been no controversy around it. Penguin’s decision to back out of publishing it made no commercial sense at all. Sonia Gandhi a major Indian political figure, she has not been known to be shrill and provocative in her public pronouncements. For Penguin to hide behind ‘legal’ advice is disingenuous. It is abundantly clear that the publisher attempted to censor Mrs Gandhi’s memoirs, and the author refused to bend.
This is hardly the first time Penguin has done this. Recently, the publisher backed out of publishing the American journalist Joe Sacco’s graphic book, The Once and Future Riot. This is a book based on the communal riots that were instigated in Muzzafarnagar in western Uttar Pradesh in 2013. These riots were used to sharpen communal polarisation in the lead up to the 2014 elections, and were a contributory factor in the success of the BJP in that election. Then there is the case of a book by a former Army chief, which too Penguin was supposed to publish, but backed out of.
In two of these instances, fortunately, the books have found alternative publishers. Mrs Gandhi’s memoirs are being published by HarperCollins, another major publisher, and Joe Sacco’s book is being published by LeftWord Books.
There is a disturbing trend apparent here – of Penguin not publishing books that are in some way critical of the BJP, the RSS, the current government, and the Prime Minister. This trend started even before the BJP came to power in the May 2014 elections. Earlier that year, Penguin withdrew and pulped a book by the historian Wendy Doniger, when faced with a legal case filed by an RSS vigilante, Dinanath Batra. (Mr Batra has been dead for over two years now, so Penguin can’t even blame him for its recent actions.) Prof. Doniger’s book was subsequently published by Speaking Tiger without any changes in the text.
After the controversy around Sonia Gandhi’s book, other authors have also gone public with their experience with Penguin. One of them is Dhirendra K. Jha, who had signed a two-book contract with Penguin. His first, Gandhi’s Assassin, was published in 2022, but the second, a biography of the late RSS chief M.S. Golwalkar, ran into trouble with the publisher. Penguin insisted on deleting all references to the Nazi regime, of which Golwalkar was a well-known admirer; critical references to Golwalkar’s own 1939 book We or Our Nationhood Defined; and details of a 1942 RSS camp for which the author had documentary evidence. The author refused to make these changes, and the book was published by Simon & Schuster India.
While Penguin is the biggest culprit in terms of trying to muzzle and censor books critical of the Hindu Right, others also occasionally develop cold feet. For example, on the day the results were declared for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections that placed the BJP in power, 16 May, Orient Blackswan ‘set aside’ a book on communalism and sexual violence in Gujarat. As in the case of the Wendy Doniger book earlier that year, the culprit in this case was again Dinanath Batra, the RSS vigilante, who threatened the publisher with a lawsuit.
In many of these cases, the publisher has hidden behind a smokescreen of ‘fact-checking’ and ‘editorial due diligence’. These arguments are efforts to muddy the waters. Any publisher that takes itself seriously adheres to their internal standards of editorial due diligence and, in the case of non-fiction, fact-checking. However, as the examples of the Golwalkar biography and the Sonia Gandhi memoirs show, Penguin has repeatedly crossed the line between due diligence and outright censorship. There can be no justification for asking the author to cut out references to the Nazi regime from a book on Golwalkar, when it is a well-known fact, cited by numerous authors previously, that Golwalkar wrote approvingly about the Nazis and their campaign for the extermination of Jews. The conclusion is inescapable: Someone at the very top of Penguin is either extraordinarily cowardly, or a right-wing bigot – or both.
Some people argue that publishers such as Penguin, because they are so big, have a lot to lose, and have a responsibility towards safeguarding their employees’ well-being and jobs. This is a ludicrous argument. It is small publishers such as LeftWord who have a lot more to lose. Big publishers not only have deep pockets and access to legal resources, they also have stature and prestige in the market and in society. Any number of eminent authors, citizens, opinion makers will jump to their defence if they are attacked. Small publishers have very little. If the government decides to go after a small publisher, the publisher could very well face the prospect of simply being shut down.
Small publishers have a lot more to lose, and yet, they are the ones who seem to have more of a spine. When a Penguin tries to muzzle critical voices, it has several pernicious long term implications. It makes the idea of censorship seem normal. It bolsters the idea that books are ‘dangerous’. It adds to the atmosphere of fear. It disincentivises risk taking by others.
Publishing is unlike most other businesses. It doesn’t involve merely producing goods and making profits. The ‘goods’ that a publisher produces are books, and books are carriers of ideas. Ideas are not a ‘product’. They form the bedrock for all social interactions in society. For any healthy society to thrive, you need a diversity of ideas to circulate. These include ideas that challenge the status quo. No society can progress unless challenging ideas, dissenting ideas circulate freely.
Through its recent actions of stifling free expression of ideas, Penguin has harmed the publishing ecosystem and the very idea of democracy.
This article appeared in People’s Democracy, Sept. 7–13, 2026.
Courtesy: https://sudu26.substack.com/