Editorial, The Statesman, 19 February, 2000

Cultural policing, intellectual censorship - this is the world on offer from the BJP and its Parivar. The decision of the ICHR authorities - packed with saffron sympathisers - to suspend publication of Sumit Sarkar and K.N. Panikkar's volumes in the "Towards Freedom" series is an ominous sign of what could happen in an India governed by the BJP, unrestrained by the compulsions of coalition politics.,. The ICHR authorities claim that volumes by P.S. Gupta and Basudev Chatterjee have belittled the role of the 'RSS and Hindu Mahasabha and highlighted the role of Communists in the nationalist movement ... Charges of deliberate falsification are contemptible, especially when they come from people with an avowed agenda of rewriting history with a narrow, sectarian politico-cultural focus.

The decision to "review" Sarkar and Panikkar's volumes is obviously a part of the saffron censorship agenda ... Such gross, fascist behaviour is to be expected from the Sangh Parivar and assorted hangers-on .... That the Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS kept aloof from the "Quit India" movement is a matter of historical record ... This censorship is intolerable - and if the BJP's secular allies acquiesce in. it, they will have reduced their share of power for a mess of pottage.