A court in Goa has dismissed a civil defamation suit, filed by Hindutva organisation Sanatan Sanstha, against publishing house Juggernaut B...
A court in Goa has dismissed a civil defamation suit, filed by Hindutva organisation Sanatan Sanstha, against publishing house Juggernaut Books and author Dhirendra K Jha for publishing and sale of the book Shadow Armies: Fringe Organizations and Foot Soldiers of Hindutva. The plea, moved in 2018, had sought Rs 10 crore as damages, but was rejected after proceedings on February 15.
Every morning over a hundred visitors stream in – mostly young men and women in the Sanstha’s saffron attire with a vermilion mark on their foreheads. Disciples of [Jayant Balaji] Athavale, they stay inside the ashram for the whole day with the permanent residents – who also number around a hundred – and go back to their accommodations outside the village late in the evening.
Across the road, opposite the mansion, a wide open field slopes down to a rivulet that forms the northern boundary of the village. Until recently, the land had yielded bountiful crops every agricultural season. But one day, early in the monsoon of 2008, a powerful stink arose as the logged water receded from the field.
“The smell was so foul that it soon became unbearable. The villagers came out of their houses to an appalling sight – the receded water had left...