NEW DELHI--Rejecting an apology, officials in the west Indian state of Maharashtra say they will continue to press charges against historian James Laine for fostering "communal tension." A book by Laine, a religion scholar at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, is blamed for inciting a mob of Hindu nationalists to ransack the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune (Science, 30 January, p. 623). Laine and his publisher have since apologized for the offending material--which questioned the lineage of the iconic Hindu warrior king Shivaji--and promised to remove it from future editions. In an affidavit, Laine says "there can be no historical basis to jokes."
Laine's lawyers have asked an Indian court to quash the charge, but Maharashtra counsel Shekhar Naphade says dropping it would "set a wrong precedent." The dispute could be resolved by the Mumbai High Court later this year.
