Orient Blackswan


Orient Blackswan Pvt. Ltd., is an Indian publishing house headquartered in Hyderabad, Telangana.
The company publishes academic, professional and general works as well as school textbooks, of which the "Gulmohar" series of English-language schools books grew popular. It also publishes low cost reprints of foreign titles.

History

Established in 1948 as Longman Green by the UK publishing company Longman, it was taken over by J. Rameshwar Rao, who bought the majority shareholding and became the company chairman in 1968. Rao retained the majority holding till 1984. The company's board included Khushwant Singh and the Patwardhans of Pune.
The "Indianisation" of Orient Longman's management during this period was also reflected in its product, where Indian writers found an increasingly prominent place. Also during this period various subsidiaries came about such as Orion Books, and Gyan Publishings which sprang up as entrepreneurial enterprises from individuals based in Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, and Kolkata such as B.K. Todi, Saugat Biswas, Varun Tamble and many others.

Disputes

In 2006, the Pearson Education group, which holds a minority stake in Orient Longman as well as the rights to the "Longman" brand worldwide, sued Orient Longman asserting its claim on the brand. In 2008, Orient Longman agreed to drop the "Longman" suffix in an out-of-court settlement, and the company was renamed Orient Blackswan. Megha Kumar was a Rhodes Scholar. Her book explores sexual violence against Muslim women in Ahmedabad during three large episodes of communal violence in 1969, 1985, and 2002.

Accusations of Censorship

In 2014, Orient Blackswan decided to halt the sale and distribution of Megha Kumar’s book - even after printing and selling copies of the book. This decision was made after fear of a lawsuit by the quasi-militant Hindu 'Indianisation' or 'safrponisation' group Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti or The Committee for the Movement to Save Education, spearheaded by Dinanath Batra who also succeeded in getting Penguin Books India to withdraw form sale several books by Wendy Doniger, the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of History of Religions at the University of Chicago.