When my friend Professor Vetury Sitaramam, formerly of University of Poona, suggested that I provide him the scanned letters of Dr Yellapragada SubbaRow to his wife and in-laws so that Sri Kavana Sarma can make an analysis of Dr SubbaRow's drive that paved the way to his discoveries, I readily complied with. For I have devoted a life time to increase awareness of the life and work of Dr SubbaRow by not only researching them and writing and publishing his biography, “In Quest of Panacea", in collaboration with Dr E L Milford, an American archivist associated with Lederle Laboratories, but also by providing material to others including Dr Pushpa Mitra Bhargava for exploring and writing about aspects they were qualified to.
Prof Sitaramam made me understand that Sri Sarma would prepare and present a monograph at a seminar in Hyderabad scheduled in 2008 at National Institute of Nutrition. NIN is the agency chosen by ICMR for executing a memorial project that included the publication of Dr SubbaRow's collected scientific writings with my help.
Instead of presenting the monograph on lines that Professor Sitaramam proposed, Sri Sarma obtained from Professor Sitaramam a copy of 'In Quest of Panacea' and read out an analysis of Dr SubbaRow's life and work culled out from 'In Quest of Panacea'.
Sri Sarma next embarked on a plagiarisation project. He stealthily translated 'In Quest of Panacea', which is a copyrighted publication, interspersed chunks of passages translated from my biography of Dr SubbaRow with imaginary dialogues and presented it as a 'historical novel'. He first obtained for it a 'Sri Doorvasala Dakshinamurti, Srimathi Subbalakshmamma uruf Rayudamma Smaraka Puraskaram' worth Rs.10,000 and then began to get it serialised in the Hyderabad telugu journal 'Rachana', starting with its January 2009 issue.
I learnt of the breach of faith, plagiarisation and fraud only in April when a reader drew my attention to it.
I initially believed the so-called 'historical novel' was only an adaptation of my work and Sri Sarma was guilty only of not acknowledging his source. Since I had given the Telugu rights to an abridged version of my work to Andhra University, I emailed Sri Sarma with copy to 'Rachana' that he should seek post-facto permission from Evelyn Publishers, the assignee of my copyright, so that the matter can be sorted out in consultation with the Andhra University.
Sri Sarma wrote to me saying the 'novel' was his own creative work and was neither a translation nor adaptation of any work from which he might have culled 'data'.
Meanwhile, I got hold of the January-April 2009 issues of 'Rachana' and found the serial was indeed a translation of my original work 'In Quest of Panacea" (not its abridgement) interspersed with some dialogue which was at least at one point in conflict with facts as set out in Dr SubbaRow's correspondence with family and friends.
I thereupon emailed Sri Sarma that his averments were not borne out by what was being published in 'Rachana' and advised him again to approach Evelyn Publishers. Sri Sarma thereupon made it known to me through Professor Sitaramam that he has asked 'Rachana' to stop publication of the serial. The May 2009 issue of 'Rachana' carried an announcement that because of unforeseen and unavoidable reasons the scheduled parts were not being printed and that full details would be given in the forthcoming issue.
The June 2009 issue gave no details about the reasons for the stoppage of the part in May issue. Instead it carried several chapters of the plagiarised work by Sri Sarma along with 'acknowledgments' saying that data has been taken from the scanned correspondence (which was obtained from me through Professor Sitaramam on false pretext) and from 'In Quest of Panacea', a brochure Evelyn Publishers produced as reprinted by NIN and my website 'www.ysubbarow.com' and Wikipedia.
A perusal of the sections printed in June 'Rachana' would show that it is even more blatant plagiarisation of chapters wholesale from 'In Quest of Panacea'. more
I thereupon sent 'Rachana' on 20 June an email saying it was compounding its violation of my copyright by continuing serialisation even after its attention was drawn to the offence under the copyright act and that the so-called 'acknowledgment' was obfuscation. I gave notice that I am consulting legal opinion and that it should write to me within a week if it has anything to say.
Rachana did not respond to me.
Instead it took a challenging stance. Its July 2009 issue carried the last installment running into 18 pages as its cover feature.
Professor Sitarmam 's Role
In his email of Friday 1 May 2009 headlined ‘the completed response from me’ sent by him to me as well as to sarma.kandula@gmail.com, spkgupta2004@yahoo.co.uk, and nandula.raghuram@gmail.com, Professor Sitaramam stated that Prof K V N Sarma ‘told me that he wanted to write a novel about him (Dr Yellapragada SubbaRow). Looked good’, meaning thereby he approved of it.
In his email of the same date that Professor Sitaramam added to his own email, Professor Sarma asserted that the whole idea was Professor Sitaramam’s by stating: ‘As it started with you for me to get involved ….’
Professor Sitaramam stated in the above-cited email that he had not until then read the plagiarised work that Professor Sarma was serialising in Rachana. If he has since then read it or would read it now, he would note that the plagiarist has stated in his introduction to the series that Professor Sitaramam asked him to present at the NIN seminar a scientific exposition of Dr SubbaRow’s life, inspirations, endeavours, goals, successes and failures. This corresponds to what Professor Sitaramam told me when he persuaded me to permit NIN to send him the scans of Dr SubbaRow’s letters to his wife and her family for passing on to Prof Sarma to prepare his presentation.
Since Professor Sitaramam attended the seminar, he would know that Prof Sarma changed the topic allotted to him from “The Driven Man or Making of an ‘Unsuccess’” to “The Story of Dr Yellapragada SubbaRow’ which excerpted from my book “In Quest of Panacea” instead of analysing the correspondence scanned by me and made available to NIN for the data base of the proposed YSR Archives.
Neither is the plagiarised serial in Rachana such an exposition for which Prof Sarma obtained my scans through Professor Sitaramam nor is it a historical novel as Professor Sarma initially claimed.
Professor Sitaramam owes an explanation whether the violation of the copyright of ‘In Quest of Panacea’ owned by me and the fraudulent misuse of the scanned letters in breach of faith reposed by me in Professor Sitaramam and Professor Sarma were committed with or without his knowledge, consent and/or approval.
If the violation and fraud were committed without his knowledge, consent and/or approval, would Professor Sitaramam be pleased to say if he made any effort to restrain Professor Sarma from resuming his plagiarisation with a vengeance in Rachana from its June issue onwards.
In his aforesaid email, Professor Sitaramam has correctly said that Dr SubbaRow does not belong to anyone. Would he concede that while anyone is therefore free to do his own research and write about any aspect of Dr SubbaRow in any format inclusive of biography whether factual or fictional, no one is free to plagiarise somebody else’s work including ‘In Quest of Panacea’ of which I am the copyright owner.
– S P K Gupta
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
How It Happened?
Mr Kandula Varaha Narasimha Sarma alias Kavana Sarma of 53, 6th Main, 5th Cross, Tata Nagar, Bangalore 560 002 has denied that the work ‘Mahatbutha Mandula Mantrikudu’ he has serialised in the January to July 2009 issues of the Hyderabad magazine ‘Rachana’ as ‘a historical novel’ is not a plagiarised Telugu translation of extensive passages from ‘In Quest of Panacea’ the copyrighted definitive biography of Doctor Yellapragada SubbaRow written by me in collaboration with Dr Edgar L Milford.
He has made the denial through his lawyers in response to the charges I have made in a legal notice served on him.
He also insists that he has not committed any fraud or breach of faith by inserting at various points in the ‘historical novel’ excerpts from my scans of Dr. SubbaRow’s correspondence that he obtained from me through our common friend, Prof V Sitaramam, on the false pretext that he will use them, in the words of Prof. Sitaramam, for ‘an analysis of his (Dr SubbaRow’s) drive that paved the way to his discoveries’ for presentation at an NIN seminar commemorating Dr SubbaRow. He in fact presented no such analysis of the correspondence at the seminar. His defence is that the scans were provided to him not for any limited purpose.
I am presenting below a chart with the purported ‘historical novel’ on the left-side column and the corresponding passages from ‘In Quest of Panacea’ on the right-side column, indicating also the excerpts from the scans and a photograph stolen from ‘In Quest of Panacea’.
Please go to page 6 of Rachana January 2009 to start reading the plagiarisation
-- S P K Gupta
He has made the denial through his lawyers in response to the charges I have made in a legal notice served on him.
He also insists that he has not committed any fraud or breach of faith by inserting at various points in the ‘historical novel’ excerpts from my scans of Dr. SubbaRow’s correspondence that he obtained from me through our common friend, Prof V Sitaramam, on the false pretext that he will use them, in the words of Prof. Sitaramam, for ‘an analysis of his (Dr SubbaRow’s) drive that paved the way to his discoveries’ for presentation at an NIN seminar commemorating Dr SubbaRow. He in fact presented no such analysis of the correspondence at the seminar. His defence is that the scans were provided to him not for any limited purpose.
I am presenting below a chart with the purported ‘historical novel’ on the left-side column and the corresponding passages from ‘In Quest of Panacea’ on the right-side column, indicating also the excerpts from the scans and a photograph stolen from ‘In Quest of Panacea’.
Please go to page 6 of Rachana January 2009 to start reading the plagiarisation
-- S P K Gupta
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