Orient Blackswan Private Limited

10/10/2025

The practice of decentralisation and devolution of power to the ‘local’ have become central to public policy discourse. However, decentralisation faces socio-political and institutional challenges in situations of unequal property and power relations, more so in the context of the entrenched hierarchies of caste, class, gender and community. Our recent release ‘Environmental Politics at the Local’ takes a critical look at the politics of the local that is central to the wider political economy of decentralisation.

Edited by Satyajit Singh, Professor, University of California Santa Barbara, USA (UC Santa Barbara) and Ajit Menon, Professor, Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, India, this volume presents case studies that cut across rural and urban settings, and macro critiques of decentralisation with micro explorations of local politics and institutions.

It features the nuanced perspectives of scholars across fields, including Amrit Negi, Pankaj Kumar Jha, Hemantkumar Chouhan, D. Parthasarathy, Pampa Mukherjee, Kavita N. Soreide, Sanchayan Nath, Jenia Mukherjee, Amrita Sen and Avantika Singh.

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Satyajit Singh: https://www.facebook.com/satyajits1 ; Ajit Menon: https://www.facebook.com/ajit.menon.142 ; Pampa Mukherjee: https://www.facebook.com/pampa.mukherjee.3 ; Kavita N Soreide: https://www.facebook.com/kavita.soreide

08/10/2025

The end of the 1977 Emergency saw the rapid spread of democratic mobilisations across India and contributed to a growing interest in exploring Marxist ideas outside the Soviet framework. Later with the emergence of regional parties supported by dominant peasant castes and headed by authoritarian populist leaders, the Left realised that an economic crisis may not be enough to push the masses towards the Left—a better understanding of mass peasant consciousness, and of the cultural, ideological dimensions of dominance and subordination, was needed. Our new release ‘Gramsci in India’ is an important volume which posits Gramscian thought as an alternative political direction for postcolonial India.

This volume is edited by Partha Chatterjee is Honorary Professor, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences (CSSS) (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100069185117813), Calcutta, Professor Emeritus, Columbia University (Columbia University), former Professor of Political Science at CSSS, Calcutta and Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University, New York; and Sobhanlal Datta Gupta, who taught at Presidency College (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063996016190), the University of Burdwan (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61553355846446) and CSSS, Calcutta and retired as Surendra Nath Banerjee Professor of Political Science at the University of Calcutta (University of Calcutta). It features essays by pre-eminent scholars such as Susobhan Sarkar, Asok Sen, Mohit Sen, Ranajit Guha, David Arnold, Sudipta Kaviraj, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Ajit K. Chaudhury, Arun K. Patnaik, Ranajit Guha, M. S. S. Pandian, Arun Bose, Kalyan K. Sanyal, Dipesh Chakrabarty and Aijaz Ahmad.

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Arun K Patnaik: https://www.facebook.com/arun.patnaik.9406

06/10/2025

Democracy is hailed around the world as the highest form of political organisation. However, with rising threats to its core tenets—transparency, accountability, and participation—and a global surge in statelessness, the very idea of citizenship is now under scrutiny. Our new release ‘Unpacking Participatory Democracy: From Theory to Practice’ offers some ‘inclusive’ approaches to the ideas of development and democracy and asks: What is participatory democracy? Why is it important? What are the implications of participation within cultural, political, social, economic, religious, and secular contexts?

This book is edited by Magsaysay Awardee Aruna Roy, who is a social activist, professor, union organiser, former civil servant and founder of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, and Suchi Pande, Scholar in Residence, Accountability Research Center (Accountability Research Center) at American University, Washington DC and Secretary of the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information in India.

This volume brings together authors from diverse fields to expand the concept of democracy and centre it on the engagement of the people. Alongside a preface by renowned economist Prabhat Patnaik and a prologue by Otsi’tsaken:ra (Charles Patton), it also features the perspectives of eminent scholars such as Patrick Heller, John Harriss, T. M. Thomas Isaac, Nandini Ramanujam, Paula Martins, Pearl Eliadis, Lucile Martin, Rajesh Veeraraghavan, Shiv Visvanathan, Vivek Ramkumar, Inayat Sabhikhi, Sohini Sengupta, Vipul Mudgal, Wajahat Habibullah and Moyukh Chatterjee.

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T. M. Thomas Isaac: https://www.facebook.com/thomasisaaq
Pearl Eliadis: https://www.facebook.com/pearl.eliadis
Vipul Mudgal: https://www.facebook.com/vipul.mudgal

02/10/2025

This Gandhi Jayanti, we invite you to delve into our repository of diverse texts on the Mahatma, his life, friendships and ideology; the important traditions of politics and thought established in and through his life’s work; the institutions he founded and the experiments he inspired. As part of our ‘Gandhi Studies’ series and beyond it, these books are committed to conveying no one fixed way of understanding Gandhiji; like Gandhiji himself, they invite you on a deeply dialogic journey. Read on!

Visit www.orientblackswan.com to read today!

01/10/2025

Hailed by Gandhi and decried by Ambedkar, the panchayat in India is at once democratic and despotic, idealised and demonised. Our new release ‘The Panchayat in Modern India: Documents and Cases since 1800’ presents a rare collection of documents and cases that record important landmarks in the history of the system, including its interaction with and utilisation by the Europeans, the British colonisers, and Indian nationalists. It asks questions about its perception across classes and castes and its potential as an alternative model of economic development.

It has been meticulously curated by James Jaffe, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater (University of Wisconsin-Whitewater), Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (Royal Historical Society) , and Fellow of the Institute for Legal Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School (University of Wisconsin-Madison) , as well as an affiliated faculty member of the Center for South Asia; and Marc Galanter, Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin Law School, and Honorary Professor of Law at the National Law University, Delhi (National Law University Delhi), Fulbright Scholar at the University of Delhi (University of Delhi), Fellow of the American Institute of Indian Studies (American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS)) and legal consultant to the Ford Foundation (Ford Foundation) .

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Marc Galanter: https://www.facebook.com/marc.galanter

01/10/2025

पूर्वोत्तर राज्यों की भाषाओं से संबंधित खंड

29/09/2025

Shyam Benegal, one of Indian cinema’s trailblazing and most influencial auteurs, has been relatively under-studied in contemporary film scholarship. Our title ‘ReFocus: The Films of Shyam Benegal’ seeks to fill this critical lacuna by taking a closer look at Benegal’s parallel cinema over the course of his forty-year career, and examining his depiction of a nation in continuous transition.

Edited by Sneha Kar Chaudhuri, Associate Professor of English at the West Bengal State University, Kolkata (West Bengal State University), and Ramit Samaddar, Assistant Professor of English (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100057793084102) at Jadavpur University, Kolkata (Jadavpur University), this volume also features an invaluable full-length interview with Shyam Benegal, which investigates his perspectives on the art of film-making and provides an analysis of his own films.

Available now in ebook edition! Grab your copy today at https://orientblackswan.com/details?obsin=2900

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Sneha Kar Chaudhuri: https://www.facebook.com/sneha.karchaudhuri

26/09/2025

We are delighted to announce that ‘Arunachal Pradesh ki Bhashayen’ has recently been awarded the third prize in the category ‘General and Trade Books-Hindi’ in the Awards for Excellence in Book Production 2025, presented by the Federation of Indian Publishers (The Federation of Indian Publishers)

This book is the latest addition to Orient BlackSwan’s People’s Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI), or the Bharatiya Bhasha Lok Sarvekshan series. Eminent linguist Ganesh Devy is the chief editor of the PLSI series, which provides a nationwide survey of the extant and dying languages of India, as perceived by their speakers. This book is edited by Lisa Lomdak, Assistant Professor of Linguistics in Arunachal Institute of Tribal Studies, Rajiv Gandhi University, Doimukh, Arunachal Pradesh (Rajiv Gandhi University), and translated by Jamuna Bini, Associate Professor, Department of Hindi, Rajiv Gandhi University, and Rajeev Ranjan Prasad, Assistant Professor, Department of Hindi, Rajiv Gandhi University.

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G. N. Devy: https://www.facebook.com/ganesh.devy ; Lisa Lomdak: https://www.facebook.com/lomdak.lisa ; Jamuna Bini: https://www.facebook.com/jamuna.bini

25/09/2025

We are delighted to announce that ‘Sangam Atlas Pratiyogee Pareekshaon ke Liye (Triteeya Sanskaran)’ has recently been awarded the third prize in the category ‘Textbooks: College Level-Hindi’ in the Awards for Excellence in Book Production 2025, presented by the Federation of Indian Publishers (The Federation of Indian Publishers)

This atlas is specially designed for students preparing for competitive examinations conducted by the Union Public Services Commission (UPSC) and other examining bodies. It offers detailed and updated maps of all the states and union territories of India, with three-dimensional histograms and pie charts, covering natural disasters, sites rich in cultural and natural heritage, wetlands, poverty and per capita income, population density, literacy and s*x ratio, universities/institutions, space research centres and more. There are special world maps presenting geographic extremes, the SAARC nations, historical civilisations and empires, forest cover, agricultural and industrial regions, cultural realms, language and so on. Additionally, this book provides two fold-out topographical maps and one pull-out map each of India and the world, and access to the Orient BlackSwan Smart App, which opens up a world of interactive quizzes and previous years’ questions papers.

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24/09/2025

24/09/2025

We are delighted to announce that ‘Islands Against Civilisation’ by Saagar Tewari has recently been awarded the third prize in the category ‘Reference Books: English’ in the Awards for Excellence in Book Production 2025, presented by the Federation of Indian Publishers (The Federation of Indian Publishers)

Saagar Tewari, Associate Professor of History, Jindal School of Liberal Arts and Humanities (Jindal School of Liberal Arts and Humanities), O.P. Jindal Global University (O.P. Jindal Global University), Sonipat, in this timely and important book, brings to life the intellectual debates, political mobilisation, and cultural assertiveness that lay behind the creation of the category of ‘Scheduled Tribes’. This book shows the connections between colonial and independent India that remain alive, and offers an understanding of the forces and frameworks that continue to shape the tribal situation in current times.

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Saagar Tewari: https://www.facebook.com/saagar.tewari

23/09/2025

We are delighted to announce that ‘Bharatiya Rajvyavastha: For UPSC and State PCS Mains examinations’ has recently been awarded the first prize in the category ‘Textbooks: College Level-Hindi’ in the Awards for Excellence in Book Production 2025, presented by the Federation of Indian Publishers (The Federation of Indian Publishers).

This title by Rajesh Mishra comprehensively covers all the topics relevant to the Political Science (Mains) paper of the UPSC Civil Services Examination and other state-level PSC exams. This latest edition is updated to reflect recent developments in Indian politics such as the new Parliament building, the abrogation of Article 370 in J&K, the National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Bill 2021, and the Citizenship Amendment Act (2019). It is enriched with a variety of learning tools, including visual aids, keywords, detailed explanations, a comprehensive bibliography and supplementary resources.

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