The Oxford University Press (OUP) apologised Friday for offending the people of Bangalore, India, with errors in one of its dictionaries, saying it was freezing warehouse sales and making corrections.
Indian historians and officials are angry that the 2005 edition of the Oxford Concise Dictionary of World Place Names made mistakes about the language and history of Bangalore, Indian newspapers reported.
The OUP said it was "deeply sorry" for the errors. "We have frozen stock and stopped selling from our warehouses, and will be pulping the remaining copies," it said in a statement.
"We sincerely apologise for the offence that this error has caused and we would like to assure all concerned that we will be putting this right as a matter of extreme urgency," the OUP said. The statement did not say how many copies of the dictionary had been sold and printed or whether it would reimburse those who have bought them.
The dictionary says Bangalore is a land of Bengalis who took their name from a local chief called Banga, the New Indian Express and Times of India reported Friday. Bengali is in fact the language spoken mainly in Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, while Kannada is the principal tongue of Karnataka, of which Bangalore is the capital.
The Oxford reference book also says that Kempe Gowda, known as the founder of Bangalore, belonged to the Hoysala dynasty - a chronological error because the dynasty had long ceased to be in power, the Times of India said.
"We are extremely upset with the errors," said I.M. Vittala Murthy, culture secretary in the Karnataka state government, the Times of India reported.
"How can there be such scant respect for history of the state?" Culture secretary Murthy said his department would write to the British publisher, demanding the withdrawal of the 2005 edition and an apology for the mistakes, the newspaper reported.
A protest demonstration will be staged outside the Oxford Press office in Bangalore on Monday, at which a copy of the reference book will be burnt, historian M. Chidananda Murthy told the New Indian Express. "British arrogance" was to blame for the errors, said a member of the Karnataka legislative council, C. Chandrashekhar Kambar, according to the Express. "They always thought they can write better history of India than us," he said. "We must protest such irresponsible acts."