Vikram Sampath moves Delhi HC against 'defamatory tweets' after being accused of plagiarism

Indian historian Vikram Sampath on Monday approached the Delhi High Court against a few historians who have accused him of plagiarising in his essays and books. Here’s what we know about the controversy:

Who is Vikram Sampath

Sampath is known for authoring biographies of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and Gauhar Jaan. He is also a Fellow at the Royal Historical Society.

What is the row about

According to The Wire, in a letter marked to Emma Griffin, president of the Royal Historical Society (RHS) in Britain, Georgetown University professor Ananya Chakravarti; Rohit Chopra from Santa Clara University; and Rutgers University academic Audrey Truschke claimed multiple sentences from one of Sampath’s articles on Savarkar, published in 2017, which they say have either been directly reproduced verbatim or paraphrased without proper attribution from two articles.

Professor Truschke also tweeted the letter:

The articles from which Sampath has allegedly copied include:

1. An article written by University of California, Irvine historian Vinayak Chaturvedi’s titled ‘A revolutionary’s biography: The case of VD Savarkar’, published in the refereed journal Postcolonial Studies in 2013
2. A 2010 essay, ‘Savarkar (1883–1966), Sedition and Surveillance: The rule of law in a colonial situation’, written by University of California, Berkeley professor Janaki Bakhle and published in the journal Social History.

The three historians also cited similar resemblances between a passage in Sampath’s two-volume biography of Savarkar and an award-winning undergraduate thesis written in 2012 by a Wesleyan University student, Paul Schaffel.

What historians said

The academics have accused Sampath of plagiarism, copyright violations and a breach of RHS’s code of ethics and have asked the Royal Historical Society to revisit Sampath’s membership.

What Sampath says

The historian has refuted these accusations and taken to legal recourse. He has approached the Delhi High Court against the academic, especially Truschke, whose tweet he has described as ‘defamatory’.

Reactions to the allegations

Principal Economic Advisor and author Sanjeev Sanyal tweeted in Sampath’s support saying that the evidence provided in the letter doesn’t relate to any of Sampath’s major works but the transcript of a speech he did at India Foundation in 2017.

“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.”

First, the evidence doesn't relate to any of Sampath's major works but the transcript of a speech he did at India Foundation in 2017. I also spoke at the event, and remember Vikram speaking mostly extempore with a few short passages read out. See link 2/n https://t.co/eZlXpbysbH

— Sanjeev Sanyal (@sanjeevsanyal) February 13, 2022

Senior adviser, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Kanchan Gupta tweeted:

My full statement in support of writer-historian @vikramsampath who is being targeted by a group of vicious, hateful and low on intellectual integrity alleged academics in #US
Do watch and spread the word.@sanjeevsanyal @jsaideepak https://t.co/uamCNxGiI0 via @YouTube

— Kanchan Gupta 🇮🇳 (@KanchanGupta) February 13, 2022

Sampath has been at the eye of storm ever since his two-part biography on Savarkar was published (Savarkar: Echoes From A Forgotten Past, 1883–1924 and Savarkar: A Contested Legacy 1924–1966 ) in 2019 and 2021 respectively.

With input from agencies

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