Languages of a Lesser God?

Writing and publishing in Indian languages are terribly devalued today

- Gita Ramaswamy

IN my 44 years of publishing experience in Telugu, I have seen continuous devaluation of Telugu when compared to English—from a section of readers (snob value of English), from English language publishers ( high royalty payments in spite of being aware of the cost of translation into Telugu, which doesn’t receive grants as English language books do), from managers of literary events, and from the English language media. Some of the best-loved writers whom Indians read and have grown up with, have written in Indian languages. Despite this, why is writing and publishing in Indian languages so devalued today?

While the number of Indians writing in English has gone up astronomically, contemporary Indian language writers like B Jeyamohan, Hareesh, Perumal Murugan, Indira Goswami, Charu Nivedita, N S Madhavan, K R Meera, Benyamin, Daya Pawar, Manoranjan Byapari, and Imayam, among others, have a huge fan following. However, this is not reflected in the Books sections of newspapers and magazines, and at literary festivals.

Translations into English have been at the mercy of multinational publishing houses. Let us call them what they are—when we don’t hesitate to call Nestle or Coca Cola multinationals, why not call Penguin or HarperCollins the same? Aren’t Oxford University Press and Cambridge colonial presses? All of them are based on capital coming in from the West in search of newer markets and greater profits, trawling the hitherto sacred world of Indian language literature. Their shareholders control them.

Publishing in India has become an international business. When Perumal Murugan’s book was unofficially banned in 2015, English language publishers clamoured to have him translated while Jeyamohan’s