No copies 'published, distributed or sold to public’: Naravane amid row over memoir

EIght years after his unpublished memoir tetrad Stars of fate triggered a political firestorm that is ease raging, former ground forces chief General (retired) Manoj Mukund Naravane on Tuesday broke his silence on the controversial autobiography and endorsed his publisher’s stand that the book was not published and no copies were “published, distributed, sold or otherwise made available to the public” either in print or digital form.“This is the status of the book,” he wrote on X, quoting a statement posted by Penguin Random House India on the social media platform on Monday. The post by the publishing house came hours after Delhi Police registered an FIR and launched a probe into the alleged illegal circulation of the manuscript in digital and other formats.To be sure, the book was to be published in January 2024, and news agency Press Trust of India carried an excerpt from it in December 2023. Around the same time, Naravane also tweeted that his book “is available now” and pointed to a pre-order link from Amazon.It isn’t clear whether the publisher and the author did not seek army and defence ministry approval (as required for any book published by an army officer on issues related to the army and the country’s security), or whether they had sought one and believed it would be a formality (like it usually is).But the PTI excerpt, on the Agniveer scheme, created a controversy and the defence ministry wrote to Naravane and the publisher to submit the book for clearance to the army before publishing it. The army went through the book in detail, recorded its observations on the subjects covered in it, and sent it to the defence ministry to take the final call. The defence ministry has thus far not given its clearance to the book.But people familiar with how the publishing business works said on condition of anonymity that it is quite likely that copies of the book were printed, and soft copies (in the form of PDFs) sent to people for blurbs and endorsements. It is even plausible that some copies were sent to retail stores and e-retailers and then recalled, these people added.Technically, though, the book has never been published.“Any copies of the book currently in circulation, in whole or in part, whether in print, digital, PDF, or any other format, online or offline, on any platform, constitutes an infringement of PRHI’s copyright and must immediately be ceased. Penguin Random House India shall be exercising remedies available in law against the illegal and unauthorised dissemination of the book,” the statement said.Apart from a status update expected of an author, Naravane’s seven-word post on X did not deny excerpts of the 448-page book that were recently published in Caravan magazine. His account of the developments that took place on the Kailash range on the southern side of Pangong Tso on August 31, 2020, and a purported lack of an immediate political directive on how the Indian Army should respond to the Chinese provocation lie at the centre of the controversy.Naravane was the army chief from December 31, 2019 to April 30, 2022 — a period of heightened military activity in eastern Ladakh in the backdrop of the standoff along the contested Line of Actual Control (LAC).His claims — in the unpublished book — on one of the most delicate moments during the India-China military standoff in eastern Ladakh that brought the rival armies to the brink of a shooting war in August 2020 rocked Parliament last week. The slugfest began on February 2 with Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi attempting to refer to events detailed in the memoir in the Lower House and the government vehemently objecting to it because the book has not been published. Gandhi later brought a copy of the book to Parliament, seeking to buttress his claim that the book existed. Soon, the book’s PDF was widely circulating on social media.The latest row has erupted in the run-up to Naravane’s new book, The Curious and the Classified: Unearthing Military Myths and Mysteries, releasing in March.On Tuesday, Penguin Random House India said a book available for pre-order, and a published book are not the same thing, at a time when controversy swirls around the autobiography that is now at the centre of a heated political debate. This too, is technically correct.The clarification, titled A Quick Guide to How Book Publishing Works at Penguin Random House India, on X said pre-order is a standard publishing practice that allows readers and retailers to place advance orders. “The book is not yet published or available.” Naravane’s book was on pre-order before the defence ministry held back its clearance in early 2024.Many questions, however, still remain unanswered — where did Gandhi source a copy of the book from, how many copies were printed, were copies shipped out to e-commerce platforms to meet the pre-order requirements, and if the books were later recalled after the need for ministry clearance arose.Publishing industry insiders explained how books are shared before they are published. These are often sent to media houses and influencers for reviews, with authors also receiving advance copies (mostly 10) before the books hit the stores. To be sure, copies of books are out before they hit the shelves.“Publishers send either PDFs with watermarks or physical copies. Once I have sent out a book to the press or reviewer, you can ask for it to be returned if the government stops it. Once a PDF has been sent out in any form, then it is very difficult. In this case, I don’t know what form it was shared in. We distributed the book on Baba Ramdev 10 years ago and he put an injunction on it. We are still fighting the case in court but at the time when the injunction came in, we weren’t allowed to sell it. So we pulled it back from the market,” said Chiki Sarkar, publisher and founder, Juggernaut Books.The manuscript of any book that contains sensitive operational details must be cleared by the army’s additional directorate general of strategic communication before it can be published. This wing comes under Deputy Chief of the Army Staff.“Once there is a legal problem — you first take your listing down… you take it down on kindle or Amazon so no copies are on sale. The sales part is easy to shut down…you pull back copies from the distributor but if someone has purchased the book and then it is stopped, then there are people who bought it. Then the publisher has no jurisdiction on those books which are with those who have bought it,” Sarkar added.To be sure, in this case, no copies were sold by Amazon, although it accepted pre-orders.In the case of books on the army, depending on the contents, the additional directorate general of strategic communication may send the manuscript for vetting to relevant directorates, including those dealing with military operations and military intelligence. A book can be published only after such clearance. In the case of Naravane’s book, the manuscript wasn’t submitted to the ADG of strategic communication for the necessary approvals.