Dr Sarmila Bose writes on the Indian government minister misrepresenting her book

Sarmila Bose has written an article for Scroll.in (28 February) on references made to her book Dead Reckoning: Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War made by Smriti Irani, India’s Minister of Human Resource Development in the Lower House of the Indian parliament on 24 February.

Sarmila writes, "She claimed I wrote that “the Bangladesh liberation war was a fallacy”. Whether India’s intervention by means of invasion in Pakistan’s self-destructive crisis was a fallacy or not is an important question, but not one addressed in my book. The book is not about India. It is an investigation, based on extensive field research, of what happened in particular incidents of violence during a little over a year of conflict in what was then East Pakistan."

She added, "I realise the minister is busy and perhaps did not have the time to read my book, but whoever briefed her on me is probably unreliable on other matters as well. Quite apart from misrepresenting my work, was it right or fair to try to use me to attack my brother, an opposition MP, who made a speech the day before?"

The full article can be read here: http://scroll.in/article/804314/smriti-irani-misrepresented-my-work-in-her-speech-oxford-researcher-sarmila-bose