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Children’s publishing is growing in leaps and bounds, with large and small
players in the fray. Children’s publishing is being transformed from a
neglected and unviable business into a consumerist one with huge market
potential. When children’s books are produced in response to a rapidly
growing retail market comprising bookstore chains and lifestyle bookstores,
the danger of children’s books becoming packaged products is very real.
While in the developed regions, excellent books continue to be produced in
spite of largescale commodification thanks to a tradition of excellence and
creative synergy of writers, illustrators and editors, the situation in
India is very different. Here, a textbook-like approach to children’s books
is transformed by the dictates of the market into assembly-line production.
And in this climate, creating the space for a vibrant, multilingual,
culturally-rooted body of children’s literature is a huge challenge.
Children’s publishing in India has no support from school and community
library networks. Large bookstores do not give space or visibility to
indigenous children’s books, there are no exclusive children’s bookstores,
nor does children’s publishing receive attention in media or academia. Books
are created and positioned as entertainment products that flood the markets
along with remaindered books and imports that have always been the mainstay
of the book trade. In the absence of a vibrant book culture, good books by
talented writers and illustrators, both in English and the regional
languages, have little space to grow.
Mainstream publishing today caters to two kinds of markets – quality books
for the more discriminating English-speaking urban elite and mediocre to
poor quality books for the masses made up of India’s vast and growing middle
class. Both markets are huge and growing and will keep the children’s book
market thriving. The majority of parents and teachers uncritically follow
the trends set by this market. Compared to even five years ago, there is
greater awareness of the need for well-produced Indian books which educate
their children about Indian culture and heritage.
But the kind of books they
are most comfortable with are those that promote cultural stereotypes. So we
are seeing the creation of a slew of book-related media including
live-action films, animation films, television programmes and DVDs, that are
based on Hindu mythology. Hindu mythology with its great epics, fantastical
settings and characters, magic and drama is being transformed digitally for
a global market that has been primed for them with the heady success of
films like Superman and Spiderman, Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, and
of the Japanese cultural export Manga and Animae. Brand India is being
promoted globally through monolithic cultural images that reinforce
stereotypes that middle-class India, with its growing purchasing power,
strongly identifies with.
Unfortunately, this marketing frenzy and hype leaves the huge majority of
Indian children out in the cold. Therefore, the challenge to committed
publishers who believe in the transformative and pro-active power of
children’s books is two-fold: What kind books do we create for a generation
that is growing up in an increasingly divided world? And how do we create a
market for them both within India and outside? It recognizes the need to
create a space for strong indigenous voices that reflect the pluralism and
multilingualism of the country. Owing to India’s large illiterate and
semi-literate population, the process of change and pro-action is slow and
long. Yet, ironically, when economic conditions are favourable for the
growth of children’s publishing, we find ourselves caught in the universal
crisis of globalization where there is less and less space for creating an
inclusive and democratic market for children’s books.
There are no two opinions about the values children’s books must reflect and
always have at every point in history: peace, non-violence, honesty,
fairness, justice are some of the universal values that sensitive children’s
writers and illustrators all over the world have conveyed through words and
pictures. Styles have changed in response to social, economic and cultural
changes in society, but the values have remained constant, although every
generation has had to battle its own complex moral dilemmas.
In the best
children’s books these complexities get distilled into their clearest and
most creative forms. The biggest challenge confronting committed children’s
book publishers caught in the dizzying tempo of globalisation and
technological change is whether we can continue to reach out with the kind
of books we believe in.
Unexpectedly, in India, the very forces of globalization are creating a
parallel and more discriminating market for children’s books. The demand for
quality education in order to develop a skilled workforce for a country that
will emerge as a global power in the next ten years has given a strong
momentum to education for the underprivileged. So we are seeing a wave of
educational initiatives through private-public partnerships all over the
country. Reading literacy is suddenly in focus and the need for good books
is being recognized. Books in local languages are characterized by a strong
cultural distinctiveness, unlike the homogeneity of books produced for the
mainstream market.
When the focus of publishing shifts from the globalised marketplace and
targets the vast majority of underprivileged children, it opens up the
possibilities of creating books that include the realities of their world
and that of the world outside through stories and pictures that don’t
exclude their cultural experiences. There are rural libraries in pockets of
the country which have well-produced books in local languages with folktales
from forgotten parts of the country, real stories of tribal children and
street children, popular science and math books, translated classics from
other countries, books of creative verse and songs, proverbs and riddles,
resource books for art and craft using inexpensive local materials and so
on. A more egalitarian and ecologically harmonious sensibility is central to
these books. While texts reflect the ethnic, cultural and linguistic
diversities of the world, pictures create a visual language that is enriched
through adaptations of folk styles, street art, illustrations by tribal and
folk artists, photography and digital art reflecting the ethnic and the
contemporary in exciting ways.
To go against the trends of the globalised market, and yet produce books
that are financially viable, is a challenge. Much of this kind of publishing
remains local and part of organizations involved in grassroots work.
But
there are mainstream publishers who have taken up the challenge of balancing
the two kinds of publishing. In the last few years, books from small
publishers from India that have won international acclaim reject the overtly
slick and glossy ‘international look’. They reflect the cultural experiences
of the marginalized and strike a universal chord. Sensitive writers and
illustrators have helped create books that reflect all that defines what
good children’s books are.
If committed children’s publishers can hold their own, bucking global
trends, a body of children’s literature can emerge that is socially
inclusive in every sense. The chances of such literature becoming mainstream
are greater in a thriving democracy like India where the lives of the
majority are untouched by global market forces. If we can connect across
places and languages with such books perhaps we can move towards creating a
democratic and just world for future generations.
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