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Vikram Sampath

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

Vikram Sampath is an Indian popular historian, noted for authoring biographies of V. D. Savarkar, Gauhar Jaan, and S. Balachander. He is a Fellow of Royal Historical Society[2][a], which he was elected to in 2021.

Early life and education

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.[b]

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.

Plagiarism allegations

In a letter to the president of the Royal Historical Society, dated 11 February 2022, Audrey Truschke, Rohit Chopra,[c] and Ananya Chakravarti[d] 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.[12] 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.[12] 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.[12] They also claimed to have come across other similar instances in Sampath's corpus of work.[12][e] Chaturvedi expressed his disappointment at Sampath's lack of ethical standards;[12] Bakhle requested that Sampath offer a public apology for what was unequivocal plagiarism and retract the publication.[14][f]

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 (270562.77 USD).[12] 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.[12] In response, the authors emphasize that referencing a publication is not a free pass to reproduce content;[12] Bakhle also points to the implausibility of numerous footnotes in any speech.[14] On the first hearing, an interim order was passed restraining Truschke and others from publishing the letter or any other defamatory material.[15]The court on 24 February ordered Twitter to take down 5 tweets by Audrey truschke accusing Sampath of plagiarism within 48 hours which were posted after the injunction order.[16]

Notes

  1. ^ 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."
  2. ^ 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."
  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).[13] Passages were minimally paraphrased from works of S. Kamra, I. J. Catanch, M. Malgonkar, R. C. Majumdar, and K. Maclean.[13]
  6. ^ Bakhle's support came about a week after the publication of the accusations.[14] 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.[14]

References

  1. ^ https://theprint.in/author/vikram-sampath/page/2/
  2. ^ "281 new Fellows & Members elected to the Society | RHS". royalhistsoc.org. Retrieved 2021-10-18.
  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. ^ a b c d e f g h "Savarkar Biographer Vikram Sampath Accused of Plagiarism, Historians Say Others' Work Not Cited Fairly". The Wire. 14 February 2022. Retrieved 2022-02-18.
  13. ^ a b Audrey Truschke [@AudreyTruschke] (February 17, 2022). "Additional examples of Vikram Sampath's plagiarism" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  14. ^ a b c d "'Vikram Sampath Is Claiming My Ideas, Words as His Own': Historian Janaki Bakhle on Savarkar Author". The Wire. Retrieved 2022-02-22.
  15. ^ 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.
  16. ^ 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.
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