Hindustan Pencils
Indian stationery manufacturer
Hindustan Pencils Pvt. Ltd. is an Indian manufacturer of pencils, writing materials and other stationery items, established in 1958 in Bombay (present-day Mumbai). The company makes writing implements under the brands Nataraj and Apsara, and claims to be the largest pencil manufacturer in India.
History
The company was started in 1958 by friends B. J. Sanghvi (fondly called as Babubhai), Ramnath Mehra and Mansookani.
It is now one of the most well known pencil manufacturing companies in India and it manufactures writing instruments; primarily wood-cased pencils, sharpeners, erasers and pens under the Nataraj and Apsara brands.
Hindustan Pencils is a market leader with a 45% market share and is the largest manufacturer in India, making over 8.5 million pencils a day.
It currently has a presence in over 50 countries.
It also produces a line of coloured pencils under the Colorama brand. In 2013, a law student in Bengaluru filed a consumer complaint against the company over its coloured pencils, claiming that the "skin" colour was lighter than his own skin colour, and that the company's preference for the lighter "skin" colour promoted "racist ideas" (or colourism).
The public source identifies “Hindustan Pencils” as indian stationery manufacturer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Hindustan, Pencils and Indian.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Hindustan Pencils”, the useful work is to connect “indian stationery manufacturer” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q28173942. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1958 and 2013.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Hindustan Pencils”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Hindustan Pencils primary sources, Hindustan Pencils archive and Hindustan research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Hindustan Pencils”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Hindustan Pencils” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.