The Oxford University Press has organised the book launch of ‘Neither a Hawk Nor a Dove’ authored by former Foreign Minister of Pakistan Mian Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, at the Islamabad Literature Festival on April 17, 2016. The launch in Pakistan’s capital city comes after the highly successful launches in Lahore, Karachi, New Delhi, Chandigarh, Kasauli, Mumbai, London, Oxford, Cambridge, and Manchester.
Mr Sudheendra Kulkarni, Chairman Observer Research Foundation India, has accepted an invitation extended by the Oxford University Press to speak at the book launch. It is pertinent to mention here that when Mr. Kasuri was in Delhi, the Shiv Sena, a fundamentalist Hindu organization warned Mr. Kasuri not to land on Mumbai or he would have to ‘face the consequences’. They also threatened Mr. Kulkarni who had invited him to Mumbai to cancel the invitation. Mr. Kasuri refused to accept the Shiv Sena’s warnings and landed in Mumbai after Mr. Kulkarni had refused to cancel the invitation. When Mr. Kasuri landed at Mumbai airport, it was surrounded on all sides by the workers of Shiv Sena. He, however, managed to leave the airport due to heavy police protection. Shiv Sena then decided to vent its anger at Mr. Kulkarni. They attacked him at his residence, beat him up mercilessly, and plastered black paint on his face. Despite this, Mr. Kulkarni decided to go ahead with the book launch in the evening with his face plastered in black paint. The picture became iconic at that time and created a sensation not just in India but worldwide and the Indian civil society reacted very negatively to the violent tactics adopted by Shiv Sena and other Hindu fundamentalists.
