Joe Sacco, the internationally known cartoonist-journalist famous for his books on Palestine and Gaza, will not be able to see his first book on India, The Once and Future Riots – on the Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013 between Jats and Muslims – sold in India.The distributors Penguin Random House India have stepped back from it. Speaking to The Wire’s founding editor Sidharth Bhatia, Sacco analyses exactly why such a move may have been undertaken.The following is the full text of their conversation, transcribed by Kavya Dhume, an editorial intern at The Wire.§Sidharth Bhatia: Hello, and welcome to The Wire Talks. I’m Siddharth Bhatia. Penguin Random House India has announced that it will no longer distribute the book, The Once and Future Riot, about the Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013. The book, by cartoonist and journalist Joe Sacco, was published in late 2025. The official reason given by Penguin is that the map of India in the book is wrong, and there are a number of so-called red flags. The official date for distribution in India was from August 2026. In 2014, Penguin had pulled out the book, The Hindus, by Wendy Doniger from circulation and pulped all the books it had held.The riots have broken out in Muzaffarnagar which created communal tension between Muslims and Jats – something that had never happened before. 60 people were killed; Over 60,000 people, mainly Muslims, were displaced; 12 were convicted, including a BJP MLA for being guilty of rioting, but it helped the party electorally. There was polarisation, which always helps one party more than the other.Joe Sacco is famous for his best-selling journalism books on Palestine and Gaza and many more. This was to be his first book set in India to be distributed in India and his fans were definitely looking forward to it. He joins us today to talk about Penguin’s decision, and also his style of journalism. Joe Sacco, welcome to The Wire Talks.Joe Sacco: It’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.Sidharth Bhatia: How and why? How and when did you get to know about Penguin’s decision to not distribute your book on the Muzaffarnagar riots?Joe Sacco: I think I got an email from a book-seller in Delhi telling me about the decision. And to be quite honest, when I was getting emails from Penguin UK about it, I wasn’t sure where this decision was originating from. I initially thought it was the Indian government itself, but over time I learned Penguin Random House India had sent the book to their legal department. I’m not sure if that’s internal or outside the company. And I was issued a five-page list of changes, corrections and some requirements. That’s what they were asking for. In any case, I mean, I looked it over. Some of what they were asking seemed quite onerous to me: many many verifications of consent from people I’d spoken to, verifications of likenesses, my drawings, I guess, or perhaps they wanted me to furnish them with photos. But the main thing for me – I thought that was sort of padding – the main thing for me was changes that seemed like editorial changes they were asking for which were removing quotes about public figures, removing quotes from a public figure I talked to, even to the extent of, you know, “move this caption down the page”. And, I mean, there were like four or five things that were called “requirements” that I simply wasn’t going to do. So the whole list became moot to me as far as like I’m going to prove that I talked to these people and this is what they actually said. You know, I’d undergone quite an extensive fact-checking process from my publisher in the United States. So, I actually didn’t want to go through that again. That’s for sure.Sidharth Bhatia: No, but this is like – let’s put it this way: you’re a journalist more than anything else. This is like going to a journalist in a newspaper on a daily basis virtually and saying, “Prove that this quote was given to you”. I mean, it’s impossible and it’s ridiculous.Joe Sacco: Well, I can show a transcript. In some cases, I could have sent the tapes, but basically I would have dumped them with a tub of notes. And you know, it seemed that they didn’t want to distribute the book. I’ll give you another example. I have to read this one because I want to get it exact. I wrote, I mean, this is a conclusion I made from the book, and I think it’s a fair conclusion. I think a lot of people listening to this will agree with it. I talk about after those riots and and just since the BJP has taken power that “Hindu hegemony has been firing on all cylinders” and they said, “This needs to be removed for the Indian edition as will be construed as inflammatory and causing religious offense”. I mean, I don’t think I was out of bounds. To come up with a conclusion and then to be told to remove it, I’m simply going to say no to whoever. You know, if you want to distribute the book and you want me to do something like that, I’m going to just reject it out of hand.Sidharth Bhatia: But this five-page list of things came to you from Penguin UK. Am I right?Joe Sacco: Well, they sent it to me, but I think it was forwarded by Penguin Random House India, or Penguin India. That’s my understanding. It was the attribution. I never had a name on it. So, I definitely get the impression it was a legal department or team in India itself.Sidharth Bhatia: And do you think there is more to it? You suggested that they don’t want to distribute it. Are they finding excuses, do you think?Joe Sacco: Yeah, I think they’re finding excuses because ultimately this is about communal violence in in India. It’s about how politicians use violence as a means of advancing themselves electorally. I actually think it’s a very fair book. I think I’m looking from different angles. When I was in Muslim villages, I was lied to, I think. When I was in Jat villages, I was lied to. I’m trying to show the whole spectrum. I think it was a very fair book. But ultimately you can’t… the conclusion is that Hindutva is on the rise and that it benefited from the riot. You know to me it’s a definite conclusion, and I think it’s a fair one to make. And I think this is embarrassing, you know perhaps for the publisher, the Indian publisher. They don’t want to distribute a book like this because of the current political climate in India. Perhaps they’re being leaned on. I know Penguin India is also the publisher of Prime Minister Modi’s book. So, I mean, there could be all kinds of reasons of which I don’t know. But to me, the fact that they want changes from me, which I think were unfair, I’m just not going to do that. There were a couple of things they pointed out that could be corrected that I think, okay, that legal code is actually called this and it’s from, you know, it’s got this designation and I had that word wrong or whatever it is. Okay, that’s fair. I would change that because I don’t want to be embarrassed by those kind of factual errors. So, in a second edition, I will change those things anyway. And I thank them for pointing those things out.Sidharth Bhatia: You know, the things that while you were telling me, it struck me that the kind of things that you – the conclusion that you reached, that this helps them electorally, is something that is written about in the Indian media on a virtually daily basis. I won’t say the mainstream Indian media, because the mainstream Indian media is perhaps a little more compromised, but certainly in the alternate media. And I give you our example, The Wire, and there are many others who have written that these things are happening and they help them electorally. So then why this sense of panic – panic is what the word I’m using advisedly, because it is panic.Joe Sacco: I don’t know. I mean, I do know that there are many Indian journalists doing quite a good job and I read books by Indian authors that have helped inform me about what’s going on in India. So I know it’s nothing new there. I don’t think what I’m showing is anything out of the ordinary, to be honest. Perhaps the idea that an outsider is doing these things, or perhaps the idea that because of the images I’m making something very vivid. I’m showing the violence. I’m careful how I show the violence. In fact, I don’t show anything basically gross, let’s say. But I’m showing a version of what happened based on eye-witness testimony. And I think images have a lot of power. That might be the reason.Sidharth Bhatia: That is true actually. And your images more so. Could you tell me how you went about uh doing the story, so to speak?Joe Sacco: Well, I mean obviously you use guides. I’m a westerner coming into a place where I do not know the language and I needed people to help me understand what was going on and to translate. So that’s always very important. But my idea was to find out what people said about a riot. It started out in some ways just about the idea of the stories we tell ourselves about something that happened. So I wanted to get an idea of how people created narratives about what went on. But of course you have to find out what went on to put it side by side with their stories, or their versions. That’s how it started. But when I was there, it became quite clear to me that a major theme – the major theme – is really what happens to democracy, or what we call democracy when violence becomes entwined with it. And, I began to look at that too. That became another theme. So basically I was going from village to village talking to Jat leaders, Muslim leaders, victims of the riot, going to displacement camps, sort of criss-crossing around looking for witnesses too. When people lied about something, I looked for witnesses that had something else to say.Sidharth Bhatia: And, at no stage, at that time – this was in 2014 if I’m not wrong.Joe Sacco: That’s correct.Sidharth Bhatia: Yeah. At no stage at that time were you hampered by police officers, by politicians saying, ‘Who the hell are you coming into this area?’Joe Sacco: No, I wasn’t. I mean, people could be quite open with me. I mean, I even spoke to the district magistrate in Shamali district. I spoke to government officials also. No one was stopping me.Sidharth Bhatia: So how long did it take for you to actually get the raw information, distill it, and sit down and draw? How long does it take? Oh, your drawings are, I must say, by the way, and you’ve heard this a million times, your drawings are incredibly detailed. And I’ve seen some frames from this particular book, and I have your previous book. I think the drawings have become a little more detailed and a little more raw.Joe Sacco: Well, I think they are a bit more raw. But, I mean, it’s important to me because this is a visual presentation to actually go to the places when at all possible. So, where Jats were ambushed at the Jolly Canal, I mean, I went to the canal. Other sites: sometimes if there was a mass meeting, I would go to the site of the mass meeting, or I would find a TV broadcast from the mass meeting so I could draw the backgrounds, even the buildings correctly. So there’s a lot that goes into creating a visual representation, which is why it takes so long to do a book like this. But basically, I did my research, basic research in probably less than three weeks.Came back to the United States; wrote a script; started drawing; and to be quite honest, I got a little fed up because I’ve wanted to get away from drawing violent books. And it became really clear to me as I was doing this book that it was just disturbing to me to draw this material. So I put it aside and I did a book about Canada, and about indigenous people in Canada, which also I’m afraid to say turned out to be a violent book because it was about the residential school system where children were beaten – indigenous children were beaten – and regimented, and Christianised, you know, basically to break them from the land. So, I realised I can’t get away from these themes it seemed. So, I finished the Canada book which took some years, and then I thought, you know, I really need to return to the India book because especially when you’re talking to your witnesses, you’re disturbing them, you’re dredging up their stories which can be traumatic to re-tell, and I feel like, or I felt like, I owed it to them just to continue, even if it was almost like pulling teeth to do the book. So, I finished the book. Then, you know, that’s why between the research and the book actually coming out was about 10 years. It’s cause I needed a break from it.Sidharth Bhatia: And I think it was published late last year?Joe Sacco: Yes, in the United States. In France, it was actually published the year before because my French publisher is – they’re very quick. They want things out quite soon.Sidharth Bhatia: Were you surprised? You know, we’ve been used to, unfortunately we Indians are used to communal tension, communal violence, inter-religious violence. This has become now a fact of life even more so. Were you surprised and shocked at the level of hostility that you saw the tension?Joe Sacco: I think what I was surprised by was the willingness of people to talk very directly about their anger, and in some cases their hate. In a place like the United States or Europe, people might feel exactly the same thing toward another group, but they’ve learned to mask those things. And in some perhaps perverse way, perverse journalistic way, it’s strangely refreshing to have people say exactly what’s on their mind. You begin to understand it more clearly. So the sorts of things I saw in India in relief, I’d say in places like Western Europe and the United States, they exist, but they’re more muted, but they exist. So, that was the main surprise to me. You know, it’s always such a learning experience to do a story like this. As I told you before, it was about narratives. That’s how I initially thought about it. Then I realised, oh it’s democracy and violence. And then, you know, you just start to scratch deeper and deeper and you see, you begin to uncover more things. You begin to understand the class component also. Not just the religious component, but the class component. And how there might be religious discrimination, but that religious framework is also the framework of class is also imposed upon it. So, those are some of the connections I was beginning to make when I was there. And in some ways it’s all kind of, I won’t say a surprise, but it’s sort of always a learning process to me.Sidharth Bhatia: So Indian democracy, such as it is, has held true for 70 plus years – almost 80 years now. There is still a sense of unity and diversity in this country despite what has been happening in recent times. People do know, and somehow manage to live next to all kinds of communities because perhaps: a. There’s no choice, b. They want peaceful, you know, lives without any kind of unnecessary things disturbing them. So, what did it tell you now about the Indian democracy that you had heard of? I presume you’ve been to India before, or you know about India. What did it tell you about what Indian democracy was and had become?Joe Sacco: Well, what I understand about Indian democracy, or let’s say the Indian constitution, it seemed like a very advanced constitution, and the people formulating it were very cognizant of what they were doing. And if I understand it correctly, the Indian constitution incorporates religious minorities, or it talks about religion clearly, that religion has a part in society and it allows for that. I mean, it’s very encompassing in that way. And to me, it’s sort of the fact that it’s been a secular state or it was a secular state for such a long time is a real tribute to it. The fact that after this dust up with Penguin India, a number of publishers, about four publishers have approached me from India saying, “We’ll print the book”, “We’ll publish the book”. That says something to me. It says, you know, it says that this isn’t a done deal, that the people who really believe in what democracy means still exist and they can distinguish electoral politics from democracy because I think they’re sort of two different things. There’s something I think of as a democratic spirit. And that’s what when I see publishers approaching me, they understand that the freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom to publish is a pillar of democracy. And they’re going to keep a hold of it, pretty much no matter what. That gives me hope.Sidharth Bhatia: Yeah. It just also tells me, to hear this, which is quite heartening to hear that several publishers have approached you which tells me, you know, I look at the Penguin decision and say, “Good God! Look what they are doing once more”, but this tells me also, that no, out there there are people who say we’ve got to keep the show running because we believe in this whole enterprise of freedom of speech.Joe Sacco: That’s right. And I mean, the, you know, the Nazi jurist, Carl Schmitt said that politics needs an enemy. So I’m always suspicious of politicians because the way they rise is by polarisation, a word you used earlier. And I mean, I think, to me, I see Indians struggling against that polarisation too. So these incidents – these violent incidents – that become riots work for the favour of one group of people really, and that’s the people who are going to want to ride it to power, ride those things to power.Sidharth Bhatia: Did you in Muzaffarnagar see any example of positivity or hope or some field good?Joe Sacco: Well, yeah. I mean, there’s, for example, there’s a case of Jats attacking Muslims in one particular village, but a Hindu man hid his Muslim neighbours. You know, that sort of thing. And people talked about a friendliness, and participating in each other’s traditions that was happening before. And was still, I think, in their minds, some of them anyway, let’s say that were trying to hang on to that. I mean, you have to realise too, that when you’re doing a story like this, you’re really going and you’re trying to find the perpetrators, and you’re trying to find the witnesses and you’re talking about a very violent episode. But that’s not necessarily the whole picture of what’s going on. I’m sure there are many people who were aghast at what was going on, didn’t like it. I mean, I spoke to journalists, Hindu journalists that, you know, helped Muslims who’d been beaten up at the time. So it’s like there are many people who you’re not necessarily pursuing as part of the story, but you know you’re really concentrating on the violent aspect which is what I was doing there. But all that said, I did find instances of people talking to each other even in front of me, going back and forth and talking about very common things, their families.Sidharth Bhatia: So, are you going to take up any publisher’s offer?Joe Sacco: Yes, I want to. I would like the book to be in the hands of Indians too, and they can make up their mind. I mean, they can make up their mind if you know I’m just some westerner coming in telling Indians about their society, or I’m wrong or whatever it is. But I think they deserve that chance to upgrade me on their own, you know, they need to see the book. And I think a lot of them will sort of say, “Yeah, we know this already”.Sidharth Bhatia: Yeah, why not? But you know, as you said, images do have that extra impact. I’ve seen, read your Palestine book and you’ve done a new one on Gaza I understand which has not reached, or if it has I haven’t seen it. So obviously people remember when they think of you, they remember Palestine. And these things have an impact, far more than just plain old journalism. Which also is important, but these things, you know, enhance the whole reading experience for the reader. So, it’s no more coming to, no more doing stories in India? Have you been put off by this entire experience?Joe Sacco: I really like India. I was in India at Ashoka University, let’s see, more than a year ago now and it was a great experience. I actually would like to return to India. You know I see too much good in India and I’m – I was always impressed like, when I was at Ashoka, I couldn’t believe the level of the students there, you know, the people I was talking to. It was just extraordinary. I would love to come back to India.Sidharth Bhatia: Great, and I think we’d love to have you here. So, thank you very much. It’s good news that you are pursuing the publication of this book. As for Penguin, they may have their reasons, of course. Thank you very much Joe for this wonderful chat with us, and I look forward to getting the book as soon as possible. Incidentally, I think online I saw some book-sellers selling it. So, I don’t know how he’s doing it, but he was advertising it, at least. But it’s not available on Amazon per say. So, thank you very much for joining us, and thank you for being completely candid. We look forward to, as I said, look forward to the book and to have you in India.Joe Sacco: It was a real pleasure to talk to you. I hope I get to meet you there in person.