Invisible India!

From the time that SwB started up, some four years ago, one issue that we saw time and again was the relative invisibility of many Indian publishers. Many books, many of good quality, but still, either not available easily or otherwise not "out there".

What can one say about a publisher who has 7600 titles of which 1500 are in print. In addition, 21 journals several of which come out every month. With its own printing press, and sales and distribution outlets in several of the major cities in the country: New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Patna, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Thiruvananthapuram, Ahmedabad, Guwahati, Bangalore. And with books on art, history, culture, biography, flora and fauna, children’s literature, science and technology...

To say that the Publications Division of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting deserves to be more visible today is clearly to say little. But the statistics are out there- they publish in a range of languages, brigh out diverse publications including CDs . With a Home Library Scheme that is a great bargain- Life membership for Rs 100! - and with titles that are not just govermental propaganda, it is clear that while their outreach and their efforts are admirable, they need to have a higher impact!

Occasionally- very occasionally- their books get reviewed in major newspapers. One such title is DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT IN INDIA by Naresh Gupta. Writing in The Hindu earlier this week, T Ramakrishnan says " In his book, Naresh Gupta, a widely-respected officer of the Indian Administrative Service, has sought to explain how democracy and human development are inter-related by drawing upon a huge volume of data on a variety of [human development] indices and tapping information from numerous official and media reports.

Starting with the concepts of democracy and human rights, Mr. Gupta has touched upon the Constitutional setting, demographic profile, and different aspects of human development and well-being. He traces the roots of the concept of ‘Gross National Happiness’ (GNH) — a concept evolved recently but not widely debated — to Bhutan, and points out that it is essentially a civilisational vision representing non-material values such as living in harmony with nature, social equality, and the spiritual quest for higher levels of being. Elaborating on the broader theme, Mr. Gupta sounds a note of caution that, without bringing in the dimension of spirituality, modern technology will spell destruction. The GNH is a subject that requires to be researched further."

Their Reference Annuals are a must on the reading lists of IAS aspirants since they are comprehensive (over 1250 pages), inexpensive (Rs 345) and contain a wealth of data...

Look for their page on the Scholars website in a few days... And in the meanwhile write to us for any titles that might have crossed your line of vision.

Catching the eye... and capturing the imagination

Three important new titles from Permanent Black- but with wonderfully colourful covers- are out now (or soon will be).

History, Bhakti, and Public Memory by Christian Novetzke is on Namdev, a central figure in the cultural history of India, especially within the field of bhakti. .... He is central to many religious traditions within Hinduism, as well as to Sikhism, and he is a key early literary figure in Maharashtra, northern India, and Punjab. ... Novetzke considers the way social memory coheres around the figure of Namdev from the sixteenth century to the present, examining the practices that situate Namdev's memory in multiple historical publics. Focusing primarily on Maharashtra and drawing on ethnographies of devotional performance, archival materials, scholarly historiography, and popular media, especially film, Novetzke vividly illustrates how religious communities in India preserve their pasts and, in turn, create their own historical narratives."

Sumit Guha calls this an "erudite study [that] is an important contribution to several important issues in contemporary social theory, especially the relations of memory, history, and community through the past thousand years of the vernacular millennium. Deeply grounded in manuscript sources, it never loses sight of the living context of performance where the texts originated."

Speaking of memory, I dare say there are few in India who have not heard of Padmini, the brave Rajput queen of Chittor, who died rather than let herself be captured by Allauddin Khilji. A new study by Ramya Sreenivasan THE MANY LIVES OF A RAJPUT QUEEN Heroic Pasts in India, c.1500-1900 deals with this tragic story, using extensive archival work and researching indigenous narratives to "track how nationalists -- both religious and secular -- have appropriated the same theme. Sreenivasan is never reductionist. She consistently locates and situates the texts she analyses in the conjunctures in and for which they were produced, whether by North Indian Sufis, Arakanese kings, Jain businessmen and literati, Rajput lords or Bengali bhadralok. She thereby undercuts the recent heroic narratives of the colonial and post-colonial era that have taken the Padmini story out of context in order to sustain the credibility of Hindu fundamentalism and the discourse of Islamic separatism."

Reviewing the book in the Journal of Asian Studies, Ann Gold says "Ramya Sreenivasan’s study of the multiple narrative traditions surrounding Rajasthan’s legendary fourteenth-century queen Padmini is a masterful and admirable scholarly achievement. ... Sreenivasan’s singular accomplishment in this meticulously researched account is to demonstrate more convincingly and thoroughly than I have ever seen done before the wonderfully complex entanglements of literature and politics, of history and legend. She adroitly tracks the ways in which apparently infinite narrative permutations may both reflect and influence real events. Padmini herself probably never existed, as we learn in passing early on, but that is of little significance. The queen’s story in its “many lives”—as religious allegory, royal selfaggrandizement, colonial confabulation, nationalist inspiration, patriarchal parable—is likely more compelling than any actual historical personage’s ever could be."

The third book is THE MODERNITY OF SANSKRIT by Simona Sawhney which refutes the commonly held belief that "Sanskrit and its canonical texts validate the Hindutva worldview". This book shows "how writers such as Tagore and Gandhi deployed the Indian literary and religious canon to argue broadly liberal positions, and how it is both possible and necessary to view the possibilities of political plenitude within texts misappropriated by the Hindu Right."

Vasudha Dalmia calls this “a passionate plea, made with erudition and conviction, for taking new stock of the modern engagement with Sanskrit, not only in Hindi lyric, drama, and essay, but also in the new political readings of texts as safely ‘classical’ as the Bhagavadgita.”

The books also reflect the plusses and minuses of globalization: all titles are co-published with different University presses in the US, in this case Columbia, Washington and Minnesota, and its very welcome that such excellent titles are available in Indian editions. But why does no University in India have a comparable publication programme??

In different sections on the Scholars site.

History, Bhakti, and Public Memory, Hardcover, 336pages, Rs 695 EAN 9788178242590

THE MANY LIVES OF A RAJPUT QUEEN, Hardcover, 286pages, Rs 650, EAN 9788178241852

THE MODERNITY OF SANSKRIT, Hardcover, 226pp, Rs 495, EAN 9788178242538

Sustainable Publishing

Architecture Autonomous is a small publishing house based in Goa. The force behind it is Gerard Da Cunha, architect and practitioner of the small is beautiful mantra, and he has built a marvellous museum (picture on the left) in Salvador do Mundo, not far from Panjim.

The museum resembles (to some eyes) a ship, and has interesting displays on Goan houses and Goan life... I've been there and can vouch that it is very much worth a detour.

But the books... AA's booklist is not long, but all their titles are exceptional! Starting with The guide to the Architecture of the Indian Subcontinent, which they co-published with the University of Washington press. An exceptional value, the book more than a handy tourist guide- with stunning pictures by the photographer Takeo Kamiya, and with succinct and useful commentary, its the kind of book that deserves to be spread even wider.

Another such is the sumptuous Houses of Goa by Heta Pandit and Annabel Mascarenhas. "This book is the result of an extensive study of over 150 Goan houses with a foreword by an exponent of natural architecture, Gerard da Cunha. The book covers all elements of style found in Goa's architecture, with 200 gorgeous, colour pictures by photographer Ashok Koshy."

Their most recent offering is the lavishly produced Mario de Miranda, a comprehensive book on Goa's famous artist and cartoonist. The book has more than just Mario's cartoons and drawings, with tributes from Ranjit Hoskote, Nissim Ezekiel, Vinod Mehta, a biography by Manohar Malgaonkar, and an introduction by Gerard da Cunha, who "wanted to do something much more serious. It had to be something more worthy of the magnificent variety in his [Miranda's] vast body of work. Work that has delighted both the common man and the connoisseur for more than half a century."

Reviewing the book in this week's Hindu, C Uday Bhaskar sums it up: The last word on Mario must go to Nissim Ezekiel, who in a very brief but poetic introduction to a 1968 book on the artist confessed: “The total effect on me of an hour with Mario’s cartoons is hallucinatory. I feel exalted. The ego collapses. I no longer trust the commonplace images of the world as it appears to my eyes but accept the images in the mirror of Mario’s art.”

In our Art section, and in Collected Works, Mario de Miranda is available for Rs 2400 within India and Rs 3650 outside India, inclusive of shipping.

The not so small subaltern voice

One of the strongest voices that argued for a subaltern view of Indian history is Ranajit Guha, "whose writings have had a massive and formative impact on contemporary scholarship in several disciplines throughout the world: on postcolonial studies in literature, in anthropology, in history, in cultural studies, in art history.

Guha first became known as the practitioner of a critical Marxism that ran parallel to the work of British and French Marxist historians of the 1960s and 1970s but which, instead of re-creating a ‘history from below’, sought active political engagement with the present by deploying insights drawn from Gramsci and Mao. More recently, Guha’s writings have drawn attention to the phenomenological and the everyday, and been noticed for their sustained critique of the disciplinary practices of history-writing.

Guha’s reputation rests most famously on his international role as founder and guiding spirit of Subaltern Studies, the series of essays and monographs that have, over the past three decades, critiqued colonialist and nationalist historiographies. While spawning new ways of thinking about history in Europe, Latin America, and the USA, these have created a ferment richer than anything else emerging out of modern South Asia, even as they have unsettled many existing frameworks of thought.

Guha’s fascinatingly diverse historical and political writings, dating from the 1950s and tucked away in obscure journals and collections, have been virtually inaccessible." So far.

Permanent Black has just brought out Guha's The Small Voice of History: Collected Essays which have been edited by Partha Chatterjee, Guha's co-traveller on the subaltern path.

In our Essays and Nonfiction Section, and in History. In Hardcover, 675pages, Rs 995. ISBN: 9788178242552

Pune's Gokhale Institute

The Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics in Pune was founded in 1930 by Rao Bahadur R. R. Kale M. L. C. of Satara, as a "center for higher learning and research in economics. From those days it has evolved into a premiere institute of advanced study in economics boasting of faculty and alumni who have distinguished themselves nationally and internationally as academicians, policy makers and consultants. "

Since the beginning they have had a vibrant publication programme- their peer-reviewed journal Artha Vijnana is already 50 years old (in 2008). In addition they have working papers, monographs, mimeographed reprint and so on (listings available on their site).

This post is occasioned, however, by the reprinting of one of their titles, the important Poverty in India by Vishnu Mahadeo Dandekar with contributions from Nilakantha Rath.

Originally commissioned by the Ford Foundation (in 1970), the present reprint- which remains of interest- is by the Bangalore based Books for Change. "This study is concerned with the problem of poverty in India. It is a problem of low national income and its unequal distribution; of slow pace of development and inequitable distribution of the small gains of development. “It quickly became apparent that knowledge of how the benefits of development have been shared among various segments of the population is crucial to an understanding of many other issues. It also became clear that an effective study of Poverty could only be done by an Indian scholar who had intimate knowledge of India’s total development progress and who is recognised within India as an authority in this field. In our search for such a scholar, discussions with numerous Indian scholars and officials led us to Dr V M Dandekar, Director of Indian School of Political Economy, Poona and the Ford Foundation contracted with the School to prepare such a study under the senior authorship of Dr Dandekar.”

See all the Books for Change titles here. Poverty in India is in paperback, 166 pages, Rs 200.

Epic Fantastic

The Urdu Project of Toronto-based writer and translator Musharraf Ali Farooqi is dedicated exclusively to publishing English translations of classical and contemporary works of Urdu literature. The first book in the series is being published in India by Random House...

Hoshruba was originally compiled by Urdu writers Muhammad Husain Jah and Ahmed Husain Qamar between 1883 and 1893. Farooqi terms this the “world’s first magical fantasy epic”- and the material is drawn from Indo-Islamic culture: he translated the volume himself, on the heels of The Adventures of Amir Hamza for which he received considerable praise.

Farooqi was born in 1968 in Hyderabad, Pakistan and now lives in Toronto. Describing the books he says "The first book of the Hoshruba series begins with the giant Laqa entering Hoshruba’s protection, and its sorcerer emperor finding himself at war with Laqa’s arch fiend, Amir Hamza, the Lord of the Auspicious Planetary Conjunction, who pursues the giant with his numerous tricksters and a young prince–the yet to be known conqueror-designate of Hoshruba. When the prince is kidnapped by the devious trickster girls sent by the sorcerer emperor, it falls to an extraordinary trickster and a rebel sorceress to continue his mission....."

Stay tuned for the remaining volumes!

Hoshruba is in our ILT section, and as and when Mr Farooqi delivers the other volumes, they will appear there too. Paperback, 516 pages, Rs 495. ISBN: 9788184000962

Let my people go!

The South Asia Study Center is based in Udhagamandalam, Tamil Nadu. They have the admirable objective of "executing research programmes focusing on national, ethnic, religious and minority questions in South Asia. Related issues of caste and gender, and the rights of the indigenous peoples are also taken up for analysis. "

A tangible result of their several activities is a set of books that address different aspects of the politics of the region. Exploration of the roots of ethnic and caste based conflicts and violence, the role of religion in nation formation and assertion, and understanding the issues of caste-based and women’s oppression are essential for the development of a democratic polity. The driving principle of the South Asia Study Centre is to throw light on this complex web of socio-political and economic factors that are presently determining the course of events in South Asia.

Their most recent books are

1. The Tibetan Saga for National Liberation by Pranjali Bandhu The book presents a historical and interdisciplinary view of Tibetan society and Tibet’s status as a dismembered internal colony of China. Economic, political and cultural aspects; environmental issues; healthcare and educational provisions–are all comprehensively dealt with to elucidate this reality. Delving into the historical evolution of the Tibetan nation the point is made that a once independent Tibet needs freedom and democracy to recuperate from its brutal mauling by Chinese claws and maws. The Tibetan resistance movement is very much alive and autonomy status within the present-day Chinese state is not likely to resolve the issue of Tibet’s occupation and exploitation.
2. Eastern Marxism and Other Essays: S.N. Nagarajan, a veteran Marxist scholar and activist, has evolved his own ideas of Marxism as applicable to the Indian conditions. He bases his version of Marxism on progressive and democratic trends within Indian socio-religious philosophy, specifically the social philosophy of Tamil Vaishnavism. On this basis he formulates a critique of Marxist theory and points out lacunae, which according to him are directly responsible for the debacles faced in the construction of socialism in the West as well as in the East. By incorporating traditional ‘Eastern’ wisdom including some of the ideas of Gandhi and Mao into Marxist theory he thinks we have a weapon, an ideological tool, which would help mankind forge a path towards an egalitarian social order that is non-exploitative vis-à-vis nature as well. Hence the term ‘Eastern Marxism’.
3. CHIAPAS: Resistance and Rebellion:Selected Writings of subcomandante insurgente Marcos. "This is our simple word which seeks to touch the hearts of humble and simple people like ourselves, but people who are also, like us, dignified and rebel. Comrades, brothers and sisters: In the world, we are going to join together more with the resistance struggles against capitalism and neo-liberalism and for humanity. And we are going to support, even if it’s but little, those struggles. And we are going to exchange, with mutual respect, experiences, histories, ideas and dreams. We are going to seek, and to find, those who love these lands and these skies even as much as we do. We are going for democracy, liberty and justice for those of us who have been denied it. We are going with another politics, for a program of the left and for a new constitution. (From Sixth declaration of The Lacandon Jungle; From the Mountains of the Mexican Southeast. EZLN (Zapatista National Liberation Front), July 1, 2005)."
   

Scholars is pleased to have all SASC publications on a separate page of theirs. A fuller description of the titles appears on their website, here.

Re-Education

Asian Educational Services is an oddly named publishing house... but with a superb backlist! Based in Shapur Jat, AES, a company of about 35 years standing specialises in republishing books of historical and antiquarian value. By now they have published about 1200 titles most of which are out of copyright.

This set is eclectic, ranging from travel books, history, art.. and not just about India, but also Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, China, Burma, Arabia, Iran, Mongolia, Afghanistan...

The educational aspect is covered in their long list of dictionaries and grammar. Croatian, French, Portuguese, Arabic, Swahili, Sinhalese, Tibetan, Burmese, Persian, Pukhto, Chinese, Inuktitut, Amharic. You get the idea.

And their authors are very much the who was who of the 19th century- Francis Younghusband, Richard Burton, Max Mueller, Herman Oldenberg, R. C. Childers, Monier-Williams, Stiengass, E. W. Lane, the Rhys Davids couple, W. Geiger, Vincent Smith, James Princep, William Moorcroft…

And James Fergusson (1808-1886), author of the sumptuous Tree and Serpent Worship that was first published in 1868. Fergusson was a self-taught historian who made an early fortune which he then spent on his independent studies of Indian architecture. His associate, James Waterhouse, an "amateur" photographer who was surveyor-general to the Survey of India for whom he spent the years 1864 to 1875 documenting our (then) diversity.

The frontispiece of Tree and Serpent Worship is derived from a photograph of Waterhouse’s, of the Northern gateway of the Sanchi Stupa... which looks pretty much the same today as well. The book has more photographs by Waterhouse and also others by W H Griggs, of the Amaravati sculptures (now at the V&A in London).

There are many such treats to be had from AES, some of which will appear on the Scholars site from time to time. Tod's Annals of Rajasthan, for instance. Or the Manual of the Andamanese Languages- for philological if not linguistic value!