New Directions in Book History Series editors: Jonathan Rose (Drew University, USA) and Shafquat Towheed (The Open University, UK) As a vital field of scholarship, book history has now reached a stage of maturity where its early work can be reassessed and built upon. That is the goal of New Directions in Book History. This series will publish monographs in English that employ advanced methods and open up new frontiers in research, written by younger, mid-career and senior scholars. Its scope is global, extending to the Western and non-Western worlds and to all historical periods from antiquity to the 21st century, including studies of script, print and post-print cultures. New Directions in Book History, then, will be broadly inclusive but always in the vanguard. It will experiment with inventive methodologies, explore unex- plored archives, debate overlooked issues, challenge prevailing theories, study neglected subjects and demonstrate the relevance of book history to other academic fields. Every title in this series will address the evolution of the his- toriography of the book, and every one will point to new directions in book scholarship. New Directions in Book History will be published in three formats: single-author monographs; edited collections of essays in single or multiple volumes; and shorter works produced through Palgrave’s e-book (EPUB2) ‘Pivot’ stream. Book proposals should emphasize the innovative aspects of the work and should be sent to either of the two series editors: Jonathan Rose is William R. Kenan Professor of History at Drew University, USA. He was the founding president of the Society for the History of Author- ship, Reading and Publishing, and he is an editor of SHARP’s journal, Book History. His works include The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes, The Holocaust and the Book: Destruction and Preservation, A Companion to the History of the Book (with Simon Eliot) and, most recently, The Literary Churchill: Author, Reader, Actor. Shafquat Towheed is Senior Lecturer in English at the Open University, UK. He is Director of the Reading Experience Database, 1450–1945 (RED) project and the Open University’s Book History Research Group. He is co-editor of The History of Reading (Routledge, 2010), The History of Reading, Vol.1: Inter- national Perspectives, c.1500–1990 (Palgrave, 2011) and The History of Reading, Vol.3: Methods, Strategies, Tactics (Palgrave, 2011). Editorial Board: Marcia Abreu, University of Campinas Cynthia Brokaw,BrownUniversity Matt Cohen, University of Texas at Austin Archie Dick, University of Pretoria Martyn Lyons, University of New South Wales Titles include: Bethan Benwell and James Procter READING ACROSS WORLDS Transnational Book Groups and The Reception of Difference Suman Gupta CONSUMABLE TEXTS IN CONTEMPORARY INDIA Uncultured Books and Bibliographical Sociology Jason McElligott and Eve Patten (editors) THE PERILS OF PRINT CULTURE Book, Print and Publishing History in Theory and Practice Gillan Partington and Adam Smyth (editors) BOOK DESTRUCTION FROM THE MEDIEVAL TO THE CONTEMPORARY New Directions in Book History Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–44325–9 hardback 978–1–137–45429–4 paperback (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England Consumable Texts in Contemporary India Uncultured Books and Bibliographical Sociology Suman Gupta Professor of Literature and Cultural History, The Open University, UK © Suman Gupta 2015 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2013 978-1-137-48928-9 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2015 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-50418-3 ISBN 978-1-137-48929-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781137489296 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gupta, Suman, 1966– Consumable texts in contemporary India : uncultured books and bibliographical sociology / Suman Gupta. pages cm. — (New directions in book history) Includes bibliographical references. 1. Books and reading—India—Sociological aspects. 2. English imprints—Publishing—India. 3. Popular literature—Publishing—India. I. Title. Z1003.5.I5G87 2015 028.90954—dc23 2014049651 For Maya Gupta and Amit Kumar Gupta This page intentionally left blank Contents List of Tables ix Acknowledgements x 1 Keywords and Preliminaries 1 Appropriate terms 2 Provocation to academia 10 Books as social symptoms 14 2 Indian Commercial Fiction in English 18 Commercial and literary 19 Local/global 26 Middle-class youth 34 3 Indian Vernacular Pulp Fiction in English Translation 39 Indian Translation Studies and English 40 The habitual English reader’s view 46 The Hindi commentators’ view 55 Back to translation studies 59 4 On the Indian Readers of Hitler’s Mein Kampf 61 Circulations 62 Who reads it and why? 64 Leadership and youth 67 A bigger picture 70 Ideological coherence 76 5 Framing Group Discussion Guidebooks 80 Jobseekers and students for business 81 What happens in Group Discussion 91 6 Low-End Group Discussion Guidebooks and Kunjis 100 High-end and low-end 101 The pressure of English 109 The quasi-encyclopaedic function 119 Production of failure? 128 vii viii Contents 7 Approaching Public Sector “Value Education” Publications 129 The form of scholarly texts 129 International and national contexts 133 Public sector publishing 139 8 Mapping Public Sector “Value Education” Publications 145 Self-reporting publications: Government policy 145 Esoteric and mystical texts 152 Supporting publications: Textbooks and academic 163 Books that ought to exist but don’t 170 9 Rules of Bibliographical Sociology’s Method 172 Bibliography 180 Index 201 Tables 5.1 Web Domains for Competition and Examination Preparation 88 6.1 Group Discussion topics in two low-end guidebooks 121 7.1 Sale of books by governmental institutions (Rs. million) 143 ix Acknowledgements IamindebtedtoaverylargenumberofpersonsinIndiaandelse- where for insights and information which figure in this book: friends and family members I am accustomed to discussing everything with; booksellers, publishers, journal editors, journalists, researchers and students, officials whom I met on various occasions or sought out, many of whose names slip my mind; even strangers whose names I forgot to ask. I should have made a list in anticipation of acknowl- edging them; it was remiss of me not to. It seems pointless now to single out some individuals at the expense of others, so I won’t try to. I thank them all, without exception, most sincerely. Earlier versions of Chapters 2 and 4 were published in the Economic and Political Weekly andofChapter3intheJournal of Commonwealth Literature. Their assessors and editors made perceptive comments which shaped those chapters, and some of which I have followed up in others. An Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded net- working project, Prospects for English Studies in India and Britain, which I coordinated with Richard Allen, provided a context and opportunities for the research which informs this book. So did a visiting fellowship at the English Department, University of Delhi, India. The Humanities Department of the University of Roehampton, UK, allowed me resources and space as an honorary fellow which are invaluable. Along with bread and butter, the Open University continues to offer an encouraging environment for research and wonderfully congenial colleagues. I am grateful to the assessors, series editors Shafquat Towheed and Jonathan Rose and commissioning editor Ben Doyle of Palgrave Macmillan, for bringing this book to the public eye. Cheng Xiao helped me with the sources for some of the chapters – which has to be the most inadequate acknowledgement ever, but then any acknowl- edgement from me would be inadequate when it comes to Cheng. Readers will undoubtedly find various deficiencies in the following pages, and I can assure them that I alone am shamefully responsible for those. x.