Memories of a bitter past ignite Indian book controversy

The wounds of partition festered again this week in India, resulting in the banning of a book and the expulsion of a respected politician. The home state of the father of Indian independence, Mahatma Gandhi, forbade the sale and circulation of a new book it says spews revisionist history about the birth of secular but predominantly Hindu India and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Written by Jaswant Singh, a former federal minister and senior member of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the book calls Mohammed Ali Jinnah, considered by Indians the architect of the partition, a great man who is wrongly demonized.

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