Founded in 1957, the National Book Trust (NBT) was an autonomous body under the Ministry of Education of the Government of India. It now functions under the Ministry of Human Resource

Development. According to Jawaharlal Nehru, the NBT was envisioned as a bureaucracy-free structure, meant to publish low-cost books. The Trust also publishes reading material/textbooks in

several Indian languages. Just a few months after Delhi University stopped selling and distributing late historian Bipan Chandra’s book _India’s Struggle for Independence, _the NBT has

decided not to reprint the Hindi edition of Chandra’s _Communalism – A Primer_. Incidentally, Dr Chandra served as the Chairman of the Trust for eight long years (2004-2012).