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Indian
book publishing is quite big and in terms of number of titles published
annually, as per UNESCO, it is one of the six top publishing industries
of the world. Moreover, Indian books are published in 24 recognised
languages, out of which 18 are more important, including English.
Every language area has its own celebrated authors and publishers
who are doing their job well. There are some publishers who are
publishing in more than one language. Centres like Delhi, Kolkata,
Chennai and Mumbai have multi-lingual publishers. In metropolitan
cities, quite a few publishers do books in English as well. As a
matter of fact, in terms of number of English language publishing
in India, we stand at number three after USA and UK. This capacity
offers great opportunities for Indian publishers to publish books
not only for the Indian reading public but for other Anglophone
countries as well.
The leading language is Hindi in which about 20,000 books are published,
followed by English which is quite important, and then Tamil, Bangla
and Marathi. Over 69000 books were published in the year 2001-2002
in 18 languages. Publishing in other six languages is rather small.
One must realise that the potential for book publishing in India
is very large and expanding. Out of a population of one billion,
only 62.5 per cent are literate. The rest 37.5 per cent are in the
process of becoming literates in the coming years. When these people
acquire literacy and out of that even if 20% become book-reading
public, it will be a huge market comparable to any other International
language the world over.
The various sectors in book publishing are; firstly, the educational
publishers who are doing a great job in providing books to the millions
of students at all levels - from the primary to the secondary, and
then to colleges and the universities. There was a time most of
the educational books were published by British publishers who had
the monopoly due to the English rule and they provided books for
educational institutions. But, after independence, flood-gates of
book publishing opened to Indian publishers and they have stood
up to this challenge bravely. The one thing which has come in the
way of expansion of educational book publishing has been the role
of the State which took to nationalisation of books in the mid-fifties
of the last century. This was done on a large scale as was the fashion
during those times of the State taking the lead in everything under
Nehruvian policy. But, having seen the indifferent results of such
nationalisation of textbooks, gradually many of the States have
denationalised and opened it to independent publishers which is
resulting into expansion in terms of quantity and quality of Indian
educational publishing.
Then, in science and technology also, Indian publishers have produced
quite a number of books which stand high in camparison with such
books published in countries of the West. As a matter of fact, technical
books from Russian languages were first published in English in
India and then given rights to British and American publishers and
also exported to those countries. Some of our leading publishers
have done a lot of pioneering work in this direction.
In the field of general books what they call in the West as 'trade
books', Indian publishing is very active in all the languages. We
have very high caliber of creative writers in every language who
stand quite tall in their creativity compared to any world language.
The world knows only our great Noble Laureate Rabindra Nath Tagore
who got the Noble Prize in literature in 1911; but, I am sure, if
from other languages good Indian books of top Indian creative writers
are translated into English language which is our window to the
world, many more Noble Prizes in literature would be bagged by Indian
writers.
In terms of book production and designing, Indian publishers have
come a long way and achieved a fairly high degree of aesthetic standard.
Indian books in all the languages are now beautifully produced and
it is a pleasure for the readers to hold these and enjoy reading.
The role of the designer and the editor is now well-recognised by
Indian publishers and leading publishers have good editors on their
staff. Moreover, now a number of free-lance editors are available
in the field to do this work on the basis of assignments.
A lot of credit goes to the printing industry which has made big
strides in its march towards modernisation to upgrade the quality
of book production. Now there are printing establishments which
do a wonderful job in taking over the entire responsibility of book
production from the manuscript to presenting to the publisher finished
copies. They take care of the book binding also which plays an important
part in giving shape to books in an aesthetic manner. Of course,
in the printing industry there have been legendary printers who
used to give good printing even from the old platen presses and
hand-composing with movable types. Thus publishing and printing
industry have worked together in making India a great center for
dissemination of knowledge in the world.
In the field of organisation of Indian book publishers, in every
language area, there are Book Publishers Associations which in turn
are federated to the apex body on Indian Publishers, that is, the
Federation of Indian Publishers (FIP) with its head office in New
Delhi. There is another Federation which looks after the interests
of the booksellers and importers though a few publishers are also
there. The national body, FIP has been recognised by the International
Publishers Association (IPA) and the senior Vice-President of IPA
is Mr. Asoke K. Ghosh, a past President of FIP. In recognition of
the strength of Indian publishing, the IPA invited FIP to organise
the 24th International Publishers Congress in New Delhi in 1992.
This Congress was a great success and over a thousand publishers
from all over the world came and saw the real panorama of Indian
Publishing.
The FIP plays an important part and as an active member of the Asian
Pacific Publishers Association (APPA), held the APPA Annual Congress
and Publishing Forum in 2003 when a large number of Asian Publishers
took part.
The important tenets of the Federation of Indian Publishers are
- the 'Protection of Copyright', upholding the 'Freedom to publish'
and 'Free Flow of Books'. There is a very active 'Copyright Council'
which gives training to publishers in copyright and creates awareness
among them about this concept. Regarding freedom to publish, India
established 'Freedom to Publish Award' which has been given to meritorious
publishers twice in the past few years. One of these was given by
the then Home Minister, Shri L.K. Advani, and the other by former
Prime Minister of India, I.K. Gujral. At the highest political and
cultural level, the Federation is held in great respect. Now, India's
books are exported to approximately 150 countries and the largest
export figures which stand at Rs. 339.31 crores may not look much
compared with other industries but culturally its importance is
vital because books take the cultural message of India to all over
the world.
The number of educational institutions is expanding in a big way
and Indian Institutes of Technology have been set up all over India
for Graduate Courses. Such Graduates are respected all over the
world, bringing good name to the country. The total number of publishers,
literates, universities, colleges and schools are given in the Table
below :
Publishers - 15,000
Literates - 65,00,00,000
Universities - 259
Engineering Colleges - 1,058
Medical Colleges - 183
Colleges - 11,089
Schools - 9,50,000
Indian book publishing has a bright future and if the distribution
of books can be strengthened by low concessional postal rates for
the carriage of books, then our books can reach all over the country
especially in the rural areas where people have a hunger to read
books but bookshops being few and far, they do not have access.
Distribution is one of the weak points which needs to be strengthened.
We hope that in the coming years the Government will look in to
this situation and do something substantial in postal rates for
the carriage of books.
Overall, the future of Indian book publishing is quite bright and
expanding.
Other
Articles:
Delhi
Printers Association - in retrospect
Stora Enso
- looking to the future
Book Publishing
in India Today
Digital
- The New Business of Printing
A Strong
Friendship - A Promising Future
CtP Revolution
in India
Book Binding
Techniques
Delhi
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