[1] James Laine is the Arnold H. Lowe Professor of Religious Studies at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, United States.
[3] After publication, prominent historians Ninad Bedekar, Gajanan Mehendale, Babasaheb Purandare, Jaysingrao Pawar and former BJP MP Pradeep Rawat publicly condemned the book and also wrote a letter to the publishers, Oxford University Press, to completely withdraw the book.
[4] A hardline Maratha group Sambhaji Brigade attacked the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune, India, accusing its high-caste Brahmin scholars as assisting in Laine's so-called slander of Shivaji.
Filing a petition in the Bombay High Court, James Laine apologized for an offending paragraph on page 93 of the book.
[3][6] The publisher Oxford Printing Press[a] promised to delete the paragraph from all future editions of the book,[7] following which the court lifted the ban in 2007.