Writer Megha Kumar contests Orient"™s claim of its decision being a"pre-release" move, noting that the book has been on sale since April 15.

A letter written by Dina Nath Batra, whose civil suit led to the pulping of Wendy Doniger"™s book on Hinduism, has now led to the"setting aside" of a publication on violence against women in communal riots in Ahmedabad.

Publisher Orient Blackswan, which recently released Communalism and Sexual Violence: Ahmedabad Since 1969 and put it up for sale on its website in April 2014, has written to author Dr Megha Kumar saying the book needs"comprehensive assessment" and should be set aside"for the present".

In the letter dated May 16, Orient Blackswan told Kumar, an Oxford-based Rhodes scholar, that Batra"™s lawyer had written to them in April complaining that another book published by them and in print for more than 10 years, the popular textbook Plassey to Partition: A History of Modern India by Sekhar Bandopadhyay, was defamatory and derogatory to the RSS.

In the light of that notice, Orient Blackswan wrote, a"pre-release assessment of books that might attract similar reactions" was being undertaken, suggesting that Kumar"™s book had not been released so far. The publisher cited worries of legal proceedings and also of exposing"staff and families" of authors and publishers to"the risk of violence, endangering their life and safety".