Goel on Ram Swarup

“It was not long before I was visited by officers of the Crimes Department, and not only from Delhi. I was accused of causing communal discord, and threatening the peace of the land. I was arrested, and ordered to seek bail. The Station House Officer in Delhi who locked me up for twenty four hours, was mighty pleased with his performance. He boasted loudly that he had prevented a big street riot in Delhi. He invited me to accompany him and see for myself the missiles which the local Muslims had piled up on the roofs of their houses, apart from the firearms inside. When I asked him why he had not got the missiles removed and the firearms flushed out, he snarled, "Address your question to the big bosses of the political parties. I am only a small fry trying to earn my daily bread." I had been arrested in the classic case of Ram Swarup's documented study, "Understanding Islam through Hadis: Religious Faith or Fanaticism?"... There had been loud talk in the book market at Delhi that this book was going to be banned... A Muslim mob had materialized outside the binder's shop, and threatened to burn down the establishment. The Station House Officer, I had mentioned, had appeared on the scene in a matter of minutes, and carried away all the sheets as well as the binder. In the next few hours I had been picked up. ... The Delhi Administration issued a notification in November, 1991, stating that the Hindi translation will stand banned whenever it is published. In March 1992, the same Administration banned the English original also.”

“The same pattern was repeated in the case of the Hindi translation of Ram Swarup's Understanding Islam Through Hadis. ... Radiance, a Weekly published by the Jamaat-e-Islami from Delhi, had raised hell in its issue of 17-23 June, 1990. "Most portions of the book are concoctions and distortions as well as defamatory and derogatory to the Holy Prophet", it wrote. It went on to quote passages from the translation without informing the readers that all of them are found in the orthodox collections of Hadis as well as the pious biographies of the Prophet! It depended on the ignorance of the common Muslim and ascribed those passages to the writer, Ram Swarup! ... But what happened on 27th November 1990 was the most surprising event in the history of this case. A notification of the Delhi Administration announced that the Hindi translation, Hadîs ke Mâdhyama se Islâm kâ Addhyana had been banned and all its copies stood confiscated as soon as published. There was not the hint of a reference that the same Administration had screened the book not once but twice, over a period of three years, cleared it as unobjectionable, and got dismissed the case registered against the publisher and the printer. Come March 1991 and the English original of the book was also banned by the same Administration, without taking into account the fact that this book had been in print and circulation in India for eight years and that the Administration itself had found it unobjectionable after having scrutinized it for months soon after it was published. Strange are the ways of Secularism in India!”