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{{Short description|Indian historian}}
{{Short description|Indian historian}}
{{pp-vandalism|small=yes}}
 
{{Infobox person
{{Infobox person
| name              = Vikram Sampath
| name              = Vikram Sampath

Revision as of 09:45, 2 July 2023

Vikram Sampath
Vikram Sampath (First person from right)
Born
Bangalore
Alma mater
OccupationHistorian, columnist, former Senior Research Fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library[1]
Notable work
Savarkar

Vikram Sampath is an Indian popular historian, noted for authoring biography of V. D. Savarkar. He is a Fellow of Royal Historical Society.

In February 2022,three academics-Audrey Truschke, Rohit Chopra and Ananya Chakravarti accused Sampath of plagiarism; Sampath denies the charges and has responded with a lawsuit resulting in Delhi High Court passing an interim order restraining Truschke and other persons from publishing any defamatory material against Sampath till April 1.[2]

Early Life

Born and raised in Bangalore, he completed his schooling in Bangalore at . the Sri Aurobindo Memorial School and Bishop Cotton Boys' School. He obtained a Bachelors in Engineering in Electronics and a Masters in Mathematics from BITS Pilani. He obtained an MBA in Finance from S P Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai.[3]

Sampath has a doctorate (October 2017) in ethnomusicology from the School of Music at University of Queensland, Australia.[lower-alpha 1]

Career

Sampath is a former senior fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi. He is also the founder-director of the Bangalore Lit Fest and the ZEE Group's ARTH: A Culture Fest.[4][5]

Works

His first book, Splendours of Royal Mysore: The Untold Story of the Wodeyars was a history on Wadiyar Dynasty of Mysore. His second work—My Name Is Gauhar Jaan: The Life and Times of a Musician—is the biography of Gauhar Jaan, India's first classical musician to record on the gramophone.[6]

His third book—Voice of the Veena: S. Balachander, A Biography—narrates the story of Veena maestro Dr. S Balachander.[7] His fourth work is the biography of Savarkar in two parts – Savarkar: Echoes From A Forgotten Past, 1883–1924 and Savarkar: A Contested Legacy 1924–1966.[8]

Awards

He was awarded the first Sahitya Akademi’s Yuva Puraskar in English literature[9][10] and the ARSC International Award for Excellence in Historical Research in New York for his book on Gauhar Jaan.[11] In 2021, he was elected as a Fellow of Royal Historical Society.[12][lower-alpha 2]

Plagiarism allegations

In a letter to the president of the Royal Historical Society, dated 11 February 2022, Audrey Truschke, Rohit Chopra,[lower-alpha 3] and Ananya Chakravarti[lower-alpha 4] accused Sampath of plagiarism and requested that Sampath's membership be revisited and his scholarship—that has been largely ignored due to publication in non-peer-reviewed media—be meticulously probed.[13][14] In evidence, were attached multiple lines (incl. footnotes) from a 2017 publication which were reproduced in toto or minimally paraphrased from works of Vinayak Chaturvedi and Janaki Bakhle absent inline citations or explicit attributions.[13] Another example was cited from the first volume of his biography of Savarkar — a paragraph ran near-identical to that in an undergraduate student thesis.[13] They also claimed to have come across other similar instances in Sampath's corpus of work.[13][lower-alpha 5] Chaturvedi expressed his disappointment at Sampath's lack of ethical standards;[13][16] Bakhle requested that Sampath offer a public apology for what was unequivocal plagiarism and retract the publication.[17][lower-alpha 6]

Sampath rejects the allegations as part of a "motivated smear-campaign" and has filed a defamation suit in Delhi High Court seeking costs of 2 Crore INR (Undefined year "2021" USD).[13] He claims the 2017 publication to be transcript of a speech—where he had indeed attributed all of the scholars in a proper fashion—and highlights how the sources remain cited in the bibliography section at the end; the biography-paragraph appeared to be similar due to common dependence on a particular source.[13] In response, the authors emphasize that referencing a publication is not a free pass to reproduce content;[13] Bakhle also points to the implausibility of numerous footnotes in any speech.[17] On the first hearing, an interim order was passed restraining Truschke and others from publishing the letter or any other defamatory material;[18] multiple tweets to such effect, that were published despite the order, were asked to be pulled down a week later.[19]

After the defamation suit by Vikram Sampath, a open letter began circulated in social media in support of the three academics claiming support of some 135 Academics [20]which was shared by Audrey Truschke ended up in controversy with many academics like Ramachandra Guha,Pratap Bhanu Mehta saying they never signed the letter. [21]

Notes

  1. ↑ The thesis was titled "Indian classical music and the gramophone (c. 1900-1930): A socio-cultural, historical, and musical analysis of the Gramophone Company’s Indian recording expeditions."
  2. ↑ Apart from historians in academia, members include "government historians, broadcasters, film-makers, creative writers, biographers, public historians, curators, publishers, journalists and editors, and academic librarians."
  3. ↑ Chopra is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at Santa Clara University. He has published on the intersections of Hindu Nationalism and media.
  4. ↑ Chakravarti is an Associate Professor of History at Georgetown University. She has published on the histories of religion in S. Asia.
  5. ↑ A couple of days later, Truschke would publish an "appendix" highlighting similar issues from his two-volume biography of Savarkar (2019; 2021).[15] Passages were minimally paraphrased from works of S. Kamra, I. J. Catanch, M. Malgonkar, R. C. Majumdar, and K. Maclean.[15]
  6. ↑ Bakhle's support came about a week after the publication of the accusations.[17] In the meanwhile, Sampath had argued (including in the Delhi High Court; see infra) that Bakhle's having reviewed his biography of Savarkar without any adverse comments about plagiarism implied that she did not share the concerns of the letter.[17]

References

  1. ↑ https://theprint.in/author/vikram-sampath/page/2/
  2. ↑ Thapliyal, Nupur (2022-02-18). "Delhi High Court Restrains Historian Audrey Truschke & Others From Publishing Defamatory Material Against Vikram Sampath". www.livelaw.in. Retrieved 2022-02-28.
  3. ↑ "Vikram Sampath ~ Author | Voice of the Veena | My Name is Gauhar Jaan! | Splendours of Royal Mysore". vikramsampath.com. Retrieved 2021-08-01.
  4. ↑ "Founders – Bangalore Literature Festival". bangaloreliteraturefestival.org. Retrieved 2021-08-15.
  5. ↑ "Savarkar (Part 1)". Penguin Random House India. Retrieved 2021-08-01.
  6. ↑ Ganesh, Deepa (2012-03-05). "It's more than the melody". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 2021-10-21.
  7. ↑ "Voice Of The Veena S Balachander". www.goodreads.com. Retrieved 2021-08-01.
  8. ↑ Parashar, Swati (28 August 2021). "'Savarkar: A Contested Legacy, 1924–1966' review: Hindutva's biggest ideologue". The Hindu.
  9. ↑ "..:: SAHITYA Akademi – Yuva Puraskar ::." sahitya-akademi.gov.in. Retrieved 18 September 2021.
  10. ↑ Feb 15, Shrabonti Bagchi / TNN /; 2012; Ist, 06:45. "Yuva Puraskar for Bangalore author | Bengaluru News – Times of India". The Times of India. Retrieved 2021-10-21. {{cite web}}: |last2= has numeric name (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  11. ↑ "Vikram Sampath". Penguin Random House India. Retrieved 2021-08-01.
  12. ↑ "281 new Fellows & Members elected to the Society | RHS". royalhistsoc.org. Retrieved 2021-10-18.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 13.5 13.6 13.7 "Savarkar Biographer Vikram Sampath Accused of Plagiarism, Historians Say Others' Work Not Cited Fairly". The Wire. 14 February 2022. Retrieved 2022-02-18.
  14. ↑ "Vikram Sampath: The literary start of the right-wing". Deccan Herald. 2022-02-27. Retrieved 2022-02-27.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Audrey Truschke [@AudreyTruschke] (February 17, 2022). "Additional examples of Vikram Sampath's plagiarism" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  16. ↑ Chaturvedi, Vinayak. "Would VD Savarkar have condoned plagiarism?". Scroll.in. Retrieved 2022-02-24.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 "'Vikram Sampath Is Claiming My Ideas, Words as His Own': Historian Janaki Bakhle on Savarkar Author". The Wire. Retrieved 2022-02-22.
  18. ↑ Thapliyal, Nupur (2022-02-18). "Delhi High Court Restrains Historian Audrey Truschke & Others From Publishing Defamatory Material Against Vikram Sampath". www.livelaw.in. Retrieved 2022-02-18.
  19. ↑ Jha, Prashant. "Delhi High Court directs Twitter to take down five tweets of Audrey Truschke against Vikram Sampath". Bar and Bench - Indian Legal news. Retrieved 2022-02-24.
  20. ↑ Writer, Staff (2022-02-25). "Over 75 North American Academics Write Open Letter Supporting Scholars Who Accused V.D. Savarkar's Biographer of Plagiarism". American Kahani. Retrieved 2022-02-28.
  21. ↑ "Didn't sign open letter to condemn Vikram Sampath's defamation suit, Guha & Mehta say amid row". ThePrint. 2022-02-27. Retrieved 2022-02-28.
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