Authorship and Consent in a Maratha Mural Project
At a central university, a third-year PhD scholar in Indian Culture is preparing a paper on 18th-century Maratha temple murals from six sites in Maharashtra. The project has a ₹8 lakh grant, 42 documented murals, and a 36-month timeline. The scholar finds that her co-supervisor's draft includes nine photographs copied from a 1998 ASI publication with no caption credit, and that a field assistant's English translations of 12 Marathi inscriptions appear verbatim in the draft without acknowledgement. When challenged, the co-supervisor says that “old ASI material is public” and that the field assistant “was paid, so no credit is needed.” The field assistant, a local MA student, has now asked to be listed as co-author. The scholar also learns that consent forms for interviews with two temple trusts were never signed. The paper is due for submission in three weeks, and the co-supervisor controls access to the grant's remaining funds.
1. Identify the research-integrity and authorship issues in this case, and set out the sequence of actions the scholar should take before submission. Explain why each action is justified.
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The issues are distinct and should not be collapsed into one complaint. First, the nine photographs raise copyright and plagiarism concerns: ASI publications are not automatically public-domain, and even where reproduction is permitted, the source must be credited. Second, the 12 translations are an intellectual contribution; payment for fieldwork does not erase the need for acknowledgement, and if the assistant selected, interpreted, or annotated the inscriptions, co-authorship may be warranted under the usual criteria of substantial contribution, drafting, and approval. Third, the missing consent from two temple trusts is an ethics breach independent of authorship.
The scholar should: (1) preserve evidence-draft versions, correspondence, image files, and the assistant's translation notes; (2) ask the field assistant in writing what contribution was made, so authorship can be discussed on evidence rather than status; (3) raise the matter with the department's research-ethics committee or ombudsperson, not only with the co-supervisor; (4) write to the ASI or publisher for reproduction permission and correct captioning; (5) obtain or regularise consent before any further use of interview material. Submission should be paused until these are resolved, because submitting with known uncredited material risks institutional retraction and harms the assistant and the temple trusts. The scholar should also ask the committee to protect the grant access issue in writing, since financial dependency is part of the power imbalance.
2. The co-supervisor offers a compromise: add the field assistant as “acknowledged contributor” and replace the nine photographs with redrawn line drawings. Evaluate whether this resolves the ethics problems.
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It resolves only part of the problem, and only conditionally. Redrawing can be legitimate if the drawings are genuinely new analytical work based on direct observation, not traced or digitally derived from the ASI photographs. If they are traced, the derivative copyright and plagiarism issues remain, and permission may still be needed. The scholar should document the method of production and have the drawings reviewed independently.
On authorship, “acknowledged contributor” is not a neutral compromise; it must match the contribution. If the assistant translated 12 inscriptions, selected variants, and explained context, that is likely authorship-level work. If the assistant merely provided literal glosses under instruction, acknowledgement may be appropriate. The decision should be recorded in a signed authorship agreement before submission. The missing consent forms are untouched by either change and must be addressed separately; redrawing photographs does not cure an interview-ethics breach. The compromise also leaves the co-supervisor's initial conduct unexamined. The scholar should accept the redrawing only with provenance notes and permission checks, insist on a fair authorship decision, and report the consent lapse to the ethics committee.
3. Draft a short data-credit and consent protocol the scholar can propose to the department for future mural projects.
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A workable protocol should fix credit before fieldwork begins, not after conflict. It should state: (1) roles and contribution categories-field documentation, translation, photography, conservation advice, drafting-recorded in a project register and reviewed at three points: inception, mid-project, and pre-submission; (2) authorship criteria in plain language, with a presumption that substantial interpretive or translational contribution qualifies, while paid technical assistance is acknowledged; (3) image and text permissions: source, licence, caption format, and a permission file for each third-party item; (4) community consent: written, translated consent from temple trusts and interviewees, with scope, withdrawal, and storage terms; (5) data custody: metadata standards, access levels, and a named custodian; (6) benefit-sharing: copies of recordings and reports to the temple trusts, and credit in local-language outputs; (7) a grievance route to the ethics committee, with protection against retaliation. The protocol should be approved by the department and attached to the grant file. Its value lies in making credit and consent auditable, so a junior scholar is not left to negotiate alone with a supervisor who controls funds.