In India, where the publishing industry has been traditionally controlled by family-owned enterprises, and where multi-national companies have been making inroads since the 1990s, there is now a clutch of independent, small publishers. Such is the case for Navayana, the first independent imprint in India to deal exclusively with the issues of caste inequalities and identity politics.
Co-founded in 2003 by S. Anand, 33, Navayana has sought to fill a serious gap in the publishing market. Inspired by the Buddhist ideals of the radical political thinker B.R. Ambedkar, an icon of the anti-caste movement in India, Anand has committed himself to sell books that critically engage with caste despite distribution and retail bias.
In 2005, along with other seven publishers, Anand established the Independent Publishers Distribution Alternatives, an independent publishers’ association. In a deeply conservative market, Anand has ensured that publishing for social change can also be profitable.
by Namdeo Dhasal (translated and edited by Dilip Chitre) (Navayana)
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'I am a venereal sore in the private part of language.' This is Namdeo Dhasal, the maverick Marathi poet with no formal education. Born an ‘untouchable’ in 1949, as a teenage taxi driver he lived among pimps, prostitutes, petty criminals, drug peddlers, gangsters and illicit traders in Bombay’s sinister underworld. In 1972, he founded Dalit Panther, the militant organisation modelled on Black Panther. The same year he published Golpitha, a collection of poems that follow the modern urban poetry tradition begun by Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal. He has since published eight collections of poems from which this representative selection is drawn. |
The three other books Anand is presenting from India are:
by Kancha Ilaiah and illustrated by Durgabai Vyam (Navayana)
The caste system is a division of labourers that engenders discrimination. Children grow up hating some labours and castes. Kancha Ilaiah, coming from an oppressed caste, has written a book that for the first time seeks to free young minds of caste prejudices. Illustrated by Durgabai Vyam, a Gond tribal artist.
by Dilip M. Menon (Navayana)
Does the dalit-untouchable have the right to life in modern India? Exploring the intimate relationships between the discourses of caste, secularism and communalism, historian Dilip Menon argues that communalism in India may well be the return of the repressed histories of caste.
by Meera Nanda (Three Essays Collective)
What is the responsibility of intellectuals in the context of religious fundamentalism and fascism? Meera Nanda examines the link between Hindutva and reactionary postmodernism, and argues for linking rationalism and science in the cause of social justice. This book has developed a cult following in India.
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