Mystery of Birla House.

Notes

The second printing, three months after the first, of this expose of sharp business practices of the Birla family of industrialists, alleging profiteering during the Bengal famine of 1943 and close ties to government officials ensuring preferential dealings. A new preface has been added, with some details of the reaction to initial publication. A recent Pakistani newspaper report claims that 'the Birlas, as it turned out then and happens ever too often now, bought the entire first edition and the second edition of the book before they bought the copyrights of the book from Burman. He opened a leftist press with the money.' However, if that is the case the timeline of events has been at best truncated, as a third printing with another new preface followed this one the following year; Burman was active in leftist publishing circles from the 1930s on and was the editor and publisher of Bengali periodical The Jugabani at the time of publication and still held that position in 1955 when in that capacity he was sued for libel.