Publishing Books in India

India is one of the leading English-language publishing markets in the world. The growth and content within the publishing space have been strongly influenced by experiences of colonialism, partition, caste, gender, social stratification and globalization. From the 1960s onwards, publishing expanded because of two notable reasons. First, existing independent publishers like Rupa Publications (started in then-Calcutta in 1938) began organizing their publishing structures and processes, and local authors were proactively encouraged to publish in India instead of going to publishing companies abroad. Second, following their interest in making American textbooks available at lower prices in the country, the USA began encouraging the opening of Indian subsidiaries of their publishing companies. As booksellers, printers and publishers realized the growing potential of English-language consumption in an otherwise linguistically and culturally diverse country, the market saw the establishment of more homegrown independent publishers that included current big names like Westland (founded in 1962, acquired by Amazon in 2017), Roli Books (founded in 1978) and Seagull Books (founded in 1982). While many of these focused on regional writing translated in English, the establishment of the Indian subsidiary of Penguin Books in 1985 became a major step towards promoting Indian writing in English.

This course will focus on the growth of independent and subsidiary publishers in India, and how they created a space to reclaim the English language, a product of British colonialism. It will also explore bookselling and distribution practices dominant in the country, especially in how it contrasts with the European market due to the absence of a fixed book price system. We will also look at the impact of the Traditional Markets Agreement (and its abolishment) and the Indian Copyright Act of 1957 on creating a market for international titles. We will then look at the rise of alternate publishing spaces including feminist publishers like Zubaan Books (founded in 2003) and digitally experimental platforms like Juggernaut (established in 2015), and how they respond to the dominance of traditional publishing in the country. We will talk about the famous teeming second-hand book markets in Delhi, some of which sell books by weight. These will be considered to examine the perspective of the book as a commodity in India. There will be a section on the impact of the pandemic on publishing and bookselling practices in the country, and if and how they provided an impetus to the e-books and audiobooks space.

Kurs im HIS-LSF