From Ithaca to She Take-all: Reforming Corruption in Indian Publishing

The admirable and formidable David Davidar is back in India, where the more things change, the more they stay the same. (By the way, Davidar?s speedy rehabilitation, after a micro-Canadian-peccadillo by Indian standards, was never in doubt among knowledgeable Indians in India; indeed the impression is that he continued and still continues to run Penguin India by remote control, and that most Indians in publishing and journalism tremble at his name, many owing him for their careers or other favors, past and future.)

But my proposed book (half-completed) is mainly about the Indian publishing industry, the voice of one-sixth of the planet?s population, and the urgent need to encourage and revive its democratic and ethical heart, without which it becomes just another racket:

????????? Most Indian distributors and many publishers have little love of or respect for books, literature, democratic and pluralistic values, or freedom of expression (and don?t even talk about ethics, they will just laugh their hearts out at the very word, ethics being the hallmark of a weakling and an idiot), but are simply cunning, barely schooled businessmen (or well-funded sons of businessmen?the hereditary system being very much in place) whose only degree is an M.C.C.: Master of Crookedness and Cunning. Many of them thrive on their major industry: reprinting Western success books, selling spiritual books to goggle-eyed Western tourists, and above all buying container-loads of Western remaindered books for pennies and then reselling them at a 500% profit to clueless Indian customers buying books by the kilo; as such, selling the books of Indian authors carrying just a 15% to 25% profit margin is of no interest to them, and Indian authors, unless bestselling, are just a pesky nuisance according to their worldview. By selling remainders to these trader-publishers-distributors, the West finances the corruption of Indian publishing and the destruction of all but the bestselling Indian writers--just as it once financed the Nicaraguan contras or the overthrow of Chile's democratic government, or dumped cheap or shoddy Western goods in the undeveloped world, destroying local industries.

????????? Why is it that Salman Rushdie and his elite cohorts, mostly from upper middle class or wealthy families and elite schools hog 90% of the sales and advances granted to Indian authors by Western publishers, presenting a fake, synthetic literary picture of India, while a rainbow-variety of discordant and authentic voices is suppressed? Greed and dishonesty: the greed and dishonesty of the ?spokesman? Indian authors who pretend theirs is the only point of view, that they represent the hundreds of millions of Indians they have never met, never socialize with, and never could begin to understand?because they have never been truly poor and unprivileged, and only have learned how to copy the Western literary masters and to write snake-charming sentences. America would find it intolerable if all its authors were Ivy League products coming from privileged backgrounds, and the working class Americans who managed to squeak through community colleges were never heard from.

?????????? Tehelka magazine, run by successful Indian author Tarun Tejpal (one of the rare and deserving middle class, self-made success stories as I understand it?yes, there are always exceptions proving the rules laid down in ?Impressing the Whites?), prides itself on its fearlessness, and its anti-corruption investigations?mostly of the politicians it dislikes. Which is laudable, and necessary. But it would never dare probe or attack corruption in journalism and publishing (they were approached, did not reply), because these two fields are incestuous and symbiotic In India, with journalists planning a book project even as they interview or write features about publishers and powerful authors. Tarun Tejpal would not wish to risk his book sales, present and future. Thus, the corrupt and the evil have the cojones of even the best of us in their hands. ?

????????? No doubt the clout of Indians is rising (or at least the power of a few elite Masters, like Sonny Mehta, Davidar, Vikram Pandit, and Rushdie), such that Rushdie still exercises godfatherly power over PEN American Center, the powerful New York area writers? organization, which has rejected eight emergency fund applications from an impecunious Indian immigrant member-writer who Salman disapproves of. Globalization is two-sided indeed, and sometimes, though I consider myself a world citizen who is against all national and racial borders, that?s far from the way the world presently is, and I am not sure that I like the injustice that results from some of it, such as British writer William Dalrymple being the gatekeeper to the India's premier literary event, excluding subversive Indian writers from the Jaipur Literature Festival which he virtually runs, like a British Literary Viceroy (even though it only symbolically formalizes what was in any case true and what I described in Impressing the Whites)

????????? How the distribution/megabookstore chain owned by one of the world?s ten richest men ill-treated and cheated one of the poorest and most indebted authors on this planet?because, in India, power is all, and the powerful have no need to worry about ethics?they never are called to account.

????????? The solution: Most Indian billionaires have made their fortunes through corrupt or partially corrupt means, and do not have the ethical sensitivity to understand or appreciate this. But at least one or two Indian billionaires or publicly funded companies need to buy up half the Indian publishing, distribution, and bookselling industry, and install very strong principles of ethics, democracy, and pluralistic representation, giving special consideration and favorable treatment to small, independent authors and publishers--and by doing this, save India's prostituted soul. At some point, it would be advisable that all top management of India?s sensitive and crucial professions--journalism, publishing, the judicial system, administration, and politics--have passed a compulsory three-month course in Ethics with a final examination conducted by impartial and incorruptible international monitors.

Preferably, such an intervention and cleaning up ought to be done by a consortium of more than a few people--some of the more enlightened millionaires of India are usually those who live in the West, and who made their fortunes in Silicon Valley--intelligent, and sensitive. The idea is that concentration of power in any one individual or institution, whether it be Davidar, Penguin, Rupa, or Reliance, is detrimental to democracy, freedom, justice, and fairness for all.? The intervention would act as a balancing force, along with the separate and independent institution of an Ombudsman for Publishing, which I have called for in 2000, and again in 2005.

????????? The reason this book, like its companion book ?Impressing the Whites?, needs to be published and discussed in the West: unfortunately, with the present feudal system in place in India, these ideas will never be discussed or even heard by Indians unless the West takes notice. When the West takes notice of an Indian, other Indians sit up and notice. It shouldn?t have been this way, but this is the way it is.? I believe a true writer and true lover of literature has no nationality: our loyalty is to humanity, and to the truth. This is why the West ought to support this book on principle, as it (and I) once supported Rushdie?s fatwahed book.

????????? This is not to deny a few admirable aspects of Indian publishing: its size, its variety, its democratic range, its tolerance, its relative un-pc-ness (pc has shrunk the cojones of most Western editors and publishers in the last 10 to 20 years) and its openness to the world (compared to America?s mild xenophobia), and of course how favorably it compares with the dictatorial sections of the Third World. But this book is written with the idealistic intention of reducing its deep injustices and its corruption. Corruption exists to some degree everywhere, as in the disingenuous and shamelessly dishonest Publishers Weekly review of "The Killing of an Author" and other mutually back-scratching book-reviews and blurbs (writers, being weak, often bend over and take it); but at least most Western publishers start out with high ideals and principles, whereas in India it is so widespread and universal as to quickly turn every writer a cynic--not a healthy state of affairs, even for a country that is admittedly corrupt across the board.

????????? Cowardly? Occasionally, Indian publishing shows cojones and spirit, but on the whole, the fear of being crushed by feudal overlords shuts up those who might even dream of speaking the truth. In the 2011 e-book edition of ?Impressing the Whites,? I explain how, while every Pakistani winner of the World Cup is promised free land, every Indian Booker-winner is automatically guaranteed an unlimited supply of free attack dogs. By the way, I do believe in loyalty or gratitude to people who have helped you rise, but not at the expense of ethics and principles?not, for example, by crushing, torturing, or being unjust to authors who have displeased your past or future benefactor, or by standing by quietly while injustice is done.

????????? LINKS related to this proposal/book:

The Killing of an Author: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003WQAX4M

Impressing the Whites:?? http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004VNMBLI (for clues to Davidars?, Rushdie?s and other Indian writers? success, and the unfair system in place)

David Davidar Blog:? http://richardcrasta.blogspot.com/2011/04/ten-questions-for-david-davidar.html

No, Baby, No: http://richardcrasta.blogspot.com/2008/05/mrs-50-percent-no-baby-no.html

Other blogs at: http://richardcrasta.blogspot.com

Source: http://richardcrasta.blogspot.com/2011/05/from-ithaca-to-she-take-all-reforming.html

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