Thread by @pranaavj

Please read and retweet this thread on James Laine's book Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India. After Jitendra Awhad's comments defaming Babasaheb Purandare, I thought of doing some research and fetched his book from the @UTKLibraries

Awhad claimed Babasaheb Purandare's name is mentioned among 12 names mentioned in the introduction of James Laine's book. However, this is not true.

In fact Babasaheb Purandare is not even among James Laine's primary sources of the book.

The offensive paragraph Jitendra Awhad mentions on Page 93 and insinuates it with Brahmins is actually false. Laine has not mentioned Brahmins but Maharashtrians. Laine has pushed all of us under the bus not Brahmins. Laine has insulted ALL Maharashtrians.

Awhad may not be familiar with academic writing but nowhere has Laine cited anybody in the paragraph and it is a work of none other than Laine himself. In-text citations are written in a completely different way.

The only place Babasaheb Purandare is mentioned in the book is among secondary sources. One of 200 other sources.

One of James Laine's primary sources is work written by Mahatma Phule, but I am not a fool to link Laine's book to Mahatma Phule because that is not how academic writing works.

This is proof that NCP supremo Sharad Pawar and his party cadre tried hard to link James Laine to Babasaheb Purandare but their argument is completely baseless and an attempt to create caste divide and brahmin hatred in society.

Another lie among many Awhadisms last night was that James Laine is an English author, however he is an American and grew up in Texas.

CONCLUSION: James Laine was in India in the late 1990s and he wrote and published the book in 2003. Everyone that he met and read during his research period would not have known he would add this garbage in his final work. Stop insulting your own heroes. @Awhadspeaks