Rajpal & Sons

Rajpal & Sons is an Indian publishing house based in Delhi.

History

Rajpal & Sons was founded in 1912 by Rajpal Malhotra in Lahore. He was assassinated by the Indian Muslim Ilm-ud-Din in 1929 for publishing a book called Rangeela Rasool. The book was considered highly controversial due to its satire of the marital life of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.: "Some of the most serious of these outrages were perpetrated in connection with the agitation relating to Rangila Rasul and Risala Vartman two publications containing a most scurrilous attack on the Prophet Muhammed [...] whose pamphlet "Rangila Rasul", containing a scurrilous attack on the Prophet of Islam": "Hindu–Muslim relations in the Punjab had reached a new low with the publication of the bigoted pamphlet ‘Rangila Rasul’ in 1924." Its publication led to reforms in India's penal code that made blasphemy illegal.: " The ensuing tension abated only with the passage of the Criminal Law Amendment Act XXV that made it a cognizable crime to insult the founders and leaders of any religious community.": "The colonial authorities were surprised when Chief Justice of the Lahore High Court, Sir Shadi Lal, chose Singh, who was a Christian convert from Hinduism, to hear the case. They were even more surprised at Rajpal’s acquittal and Singh’s reasoning for it. They moved swiftly to do damage control by trying to ensure an authoritative judgment in a similar case involving Arya Samaj. They hoped the judgement, in what was known as the Risala-i-Vartman case, would supersede Singh’s judgment. Ultimately, however, they decided that the Vartman judgment was insufficient and a new law was required."

After Rajpal's killing, his wife and son Vishwanath Malhotra took over the running of the publishing house. In 1947, after the partition of India and Pakistan, the publishing house shifted to New Delhi. The publishing house is now run by Meera Johri and her son Pranav Johri, the third and fourth generation descendants of Rajpal.

Business profile Seven prime ministers and presidents of India have had their works published by Rajpal & Sons, namely A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Benazir Bhutto, Narendra Modi, I. K. Gujral, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and P. V. Narasimha Rao. In the field of classic Hindi literary writing, the works of Harivansh Rai Bachchan, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, Sachchidananda Vatsyayan, Mahadevi Varma, Amritlal Nagar, Acharya Chatursen Shastri, Vishnu Prabhakar and Kamleshwar have been published by Rajpal & Sons. Hindi translations of Nobel Prize–winning authors Rabindranath Tagore, Amartya Sen and Patrick Modiano are also on its list of published works.

According to the publisher, 70 new titles are published every year, and the publishing house has a catalogue of 1500 books in print.

Rajpal & Sons

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