International scholars are declining to publish books in India: Audrey Truschke

Many scholar friends are refusing to publish their books in India to "avoid the exposure" that comes with it, says author and Indologist Audrey Truschke who has run into controversy here with her new book on Mughal emperor Aurangzeb.

Undeterred by the row over her book "Aurangzeb: The Man and the Myth" and her lecture in Hyderabad University being cancelled, Truschke refuses to be intimidated by "right-wing extremists" and said she would continue to write on topics, whether "controversial or non-controversial".

Talking to PTI in an interview she said, "Many of my scholar friends are increasingly declining to publish their works in India to avoid the exposure that comes with it. They just publish their work in the United States, so we read it there and everything is fine."
She had written on social media, "I was especially looking forward to talking with Hyderabadis about Aurangzeb's brutal assaults on sultanates in the Deccan in the 1680s and debates concerning what brought about the end of Indian Buddhism in the early second millennium CE."