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India at Frankfurt — and how

Hasan Suroor

India is the guest of honour at the prestigious book fair but Indian publishing has a long way to go to join the big league.

— PHOTO: AFP

IN FOCUS: A mural featuring Indian writers at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

OVER THE past few weeks, London-based Indian correspondents have been inundated with "invitations" from Indian publishers, the National Book Trust, and assorted PR agencies to visit Frankfurt where India is the guest of honour at this year's international book fair which opened on Wednesday with breathless tributes to India's supposedly thriving "artistic and intellectual" life.

Perhaps, it is not widely known that this is not the first time that India has been invited to sit an the main table at the Frankfurt fair. The first was way back in 1986 — long before India went fashionably global and acquired the tag of an "emerging power."

At the time, India seemed an odd choice for such an honour as its publishing industry was virtually invisible internationally. The English-language book market was not only small but heavily dependant on imported titles.

But 20 years on, have things really changed significantly? To many, India still seems like an odd choice for the honours at one of the world's most important publishing events. For, much though one might hate to admit, the fact is that even now Indian publishing is not taken seriously enough in the global market. While Indian printing has come a long way since 1986 and now offers almost world-class standards at highly competitive rates, Indian publishing is still struggling to gain acceptance in the West.

The kind of Indian titles that sell abroad today remain mostly the same that sold 20 years ago — namely, spiritualism, religion, yoga, coffee-table books on maharajahs and palaces, and, lately, a bit of Bollywood besides traditional niche subjects such as women's studies, anti-colonial themes, and caste politics. The hype about Indian publishing, suggesting that it has joined the big league, is misleading.

What has given it a semblance of an international flavour is the entry into the Indian market of some of the world's leading publishers in the wake of the economic liberalisation in the 1990s. But the home-grown industry remains domestic and even foreign publishers, operating out of India, publish mostly for the local market. Titles that make it to their international list are few and far between.

Production quality of Indian books remains poor and while the era of smudged ink and sticky binding is, thankfully, behind us the average Indian book continues to be far below international standards. The joke even in India-friendly Western circles is that you can tell an Indian title from a distance.

This is not because of a dearth of professional talent or lack of good design or printing facilities. There is a deep-seated historical reason for it. Most of our domestic publishers started off as booksellers and distributors (for many that is still their main trade), and they simply do not understand modern publishing in terms other than profit margins. The result is penny-pinching when it comes to spending money on such critical production inputs as paper, printing, and artwork. Generally, very little investment goes into production — and it shows.

The only exceptions are lavish coffee-table books produced with an eye on the tourist market or under special deals with their foreign collaborators.

A weak area

Promotion has been another weak area — and again because of a reluctance to invest in something that does not bring instant profit. There was a time when it was hard to spot Indian exhibitors at major international book events such as the London and Frankfurt book fairs and the standard reply Indian publishers gave for not participating was: it was too expensive, and not worth the investment. Slowly, they are starting to come out but the level of Indian participation at such events remains pathetic.

For the first time this year, there was a semblance of an Indian presence at the London Book Fair though even, on this occasion, Indians were outnumbered by publishers from much smaller countries. Some 200 Indian publishers are participating in the ongoing Frankfurt fair but such an unusually large turnout is down to only one thing: it is India's year at the fair and the Indian Government has pulled out all stops to make sure that the national book industry is well represented. The big question is: will as many publishers turn up at Frankfurt next year when there will be no government help available?

The point I am trying to make is that the fact that India has been chosen to be the guest of honour (indeed, this is the first time that any country has been invited twice) is by no means a recognition that Indian publishing is on the way to joining the big league. It is to focus on the potential that the bourgeoning Indian market offers to foreign investors, and the organisers are making no bones about it as is evident from this tell-tale passage from an official press release: "In the twenty years since India was first Guest of Honour, the Indian book market has changed beyond recognition. With more than a billion citizens, 80,000 new books on the market each year and 24 official languages, its buoyant book trade will be under the spotlight at the Fair... Publishers have been quick to single out India as an area of enormous growth. Publishing companies such as Pearson, for example, have outsourced book production operations to India, as well as moving design and editorial work there..."

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