James Laine lying, impossible to believe he never met Purandare, says Sambhaji Brigade

In an interview to India Today magazine, Laine has refuted the allegation that Babasaheb Purandare, better known as Shiv Shahir, one who sings ballads on Shivaji, was his source for his controversial writing on Chhatrapati Shivaji in his book.

The issue surfaced last week after NCP chief Sharad Pawar said he had criticised Purandare as the late historian was the source of Laine's controversial writing on Chhatrapati Shivaji in his book, ‘Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India.’

REVIVING THE nearly two-decade old controversy, the Sambhaji Brigade, a right-wing outfit, on Sunday trained its guns once again on author James Laine, debunking his claim that he had never met historian late Babasaheb Purandare while living in Pune. The organisation also slammed Laine for claiming that he had not sourced information for his book from the one written by Purandare as there are “stark similarities” in their books.

In an interview to India Today magazine, Laine has refuted the allegation that Babasaheb Purandare, better known as Shiv Shahir, one who sings ballads on Shivaji, was his source for his controversial writing on Chhatrapati Shivaji in his book. The issue surfaced last week after NCP chief Sharad Pawar said he had criticised Purandare as the late historian was the source of Laine’s controversial writing on Chhatrapati Shivaji in his book, ‘Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India.’ Pawar was responding to an allegation from MNS chief Raj Thackeray that he (Pawar) was targeting Purandare because he was a Brahmin.

James Laine’s book on Chhatrapti Shivaji

Laine’s book, which was published in 2003, had sparked a major controversy and strained relations between Maratha and Brahmin community as Sambhaji Brigade had attacked BORI or Bhandarkar Research and Oriental Institute, alleging that its researchers had provided derogatory information on Chhatrapati Shivaji to Laine. The state government had banned the book in 2004. The Oxford University Press had also withdrawn the book.

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“Laine’s is lying. His claim that he has not had a single conversation with Purandare is impossible to believe. Laine lived in Pune for 10 years and not far from Purandare’s residence…He met several researchers, historians and activists. Therefore, it is difficult to believe he did not meet Purandare. Laine is trying to protect his source who drew severe condemnation for his act for years,” Pravin Gaikwad, state president, Sambhaji Brigade told this newspaper on Sunday.

Elaborating on Laine’s source, Gaikwad said, “The derogatory content that Laine has sourced has stark similarity to what Purandare had written in his book, Raja Shiv Chhatrapati. On page 93 of Laine’s book mentions that Shivaji had an absentee father. On page 126 of Purandare’s book, same thing is written in Marathi. Also, the references to Dadoji Konddev elevating his status and closely linking him with the Maratha King are almost similar and shocking.” While Laine’s book was published in 2003, Purandare’s book was first published in 50s. Purandare died last year.
Gaikwad said Laine claims that he heard people on Pune’s streets talking about Dadoji Konddev and his close links with Shivaji. “He heard that and he says he put the hearsay in his book. Can there be anything more ridiculous than this? No matter how much Laine tries to hide his source, we all know who his sources have been and where he lifted the material from,” he said. Gaikwad said Purandare never removed the objectionable writings from his book during his lifetime. “Nor did he ever apologise for it…,” he said.

The Sambhaji Brigade also criticised MNS chief Raj Thackeray for backing Purandare and stating that historian took Shivaji’s heroic act among the masses. “Much before Purandare woke up and spread falsehoods, for centuries generations not just in Maharashtra but world over knew about the heroism of the Maratha king,” he said.
Marathi author Shrimant Kokate said he has objections to the entire book written by Laine. “There is complete distortion of history in Laine’s book. He has borrowed distorted history from Purandare’s book. Laine spent a decade in Pune and it is just not possible that he has not interacted with Purandare,” he said.

Manoj Dattatrye More

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades. Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died. Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More

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