Title: Publisher on
'red' bandwagon
Author: Sandhya Jain
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: March 28, 2000.
Serious-minded academics
and writers have for some time now been concerned at the subterranean but
nevertheless quite impregnable alliance between leading publishing houses
and a certain genre of scholarship and penmanship in the country. But so
far the evidence has been indirect, either in the form of a cold rebuff
privately delivered to individual authors under the pretext of an undefined
editorial policy, or in the type of works actually published and marketed
by these august institutions.
Recent events involving
a leading publishing house have, however, helped bring the issue into somewhat
clearer focus, at least to discerning observers. The first was an entirely
in-house affair concerning management policy towards married couples working
in close proximity. Here, it may be said in fairness, the management appeared
to have a case. Certainly, the matter did not warrant the kind of column
inches it garnered in newspapers and magazines across the city. Yet the
story - including valuable publicity for the couples' proposed business
venture - was skillfully orchestrated in the print media across several
days.
The most noteworthy aspect
of the episode was the manner in which virtually all historians of a particular
ideological school ganged up to berate the publishing house, even threatening
to withdraw their patronage from it. The reason for this astonishing academic
trade unionism was generously acknowledged in the various write-ups on
that well connected couple. It was the gentleman, it transpires, who fathered
the notion of publishing Indian authors in India, while the lady commissioned
the works (no doubt of a certain 'approved' intellectual persuasion). Still,
it is gratifying to know that even in this dog eat dog world there are
some who acknowledge their patrons.
In the second instance,
however, the publishing house itself has emerged as the vanguard of Left
academia. In an act of unprecedented defiance, the Oxford University Press
has simply refused to comply with the Indian Council of Historical Research's
two-month old directive to return the manuscripts of two controversial
volumes of the Towards Freedom series for academic review.
There are several aspects
to OUP's recalcitrance, and the dispassionate observer would be able to
easily distinguish its role as catalyst and activist in the ICHR-Towards
Freedom controversy. To begin with, when the ICHR first requested OUP (3rd
Feb. 2000) to withhold all work on the 1940 and 1946 volumes, OUP suo moto
tipped off the authors about this decision, triggering off the present
hue and cry in the media. Indeed, OUP's role in this regard was vigorously
appreciated by the aggrieved historians, who went to town with press conferences,
public lectures, newspaper articles, and even demonstrations; so it cannot
now issue disclaimers in this regard. And since ICHR, and not the concerned
historians, is the copyright holder and client in the Towards Freedom series,
OUP's conduct is, to say the least, highly questionable.
What is more, throughout
these weeks, OUP failed to return the manuscripts. It would appear that
it was only on being informed early this month that the services of Coordinating
Editor Dr. Basudev Chatterjee had been terminated, followed by another
reminder from ICHR for restitution of the impugned volumes, that OUP finally
deigned to reply.
The reply is a masterpiece
of evasion, innuendo, and tacit rejection of the ICHR command, and appears
to have been framed after much deliberation. In the face of ICHR's public
declamations that the manuscripts were not routed to OUP through its Publication
unit (the inviolable official route), OUP merely affirms that it received
the manuscripts in August and December 1998, but does not reveal how it
received them. ICHR's desire to review the volumes prior to publication
is similarly met with the breathtaking claim that OUP has "duly approved"
of both, and has even typeset and prepared page proofs of one, and is in
the process of typesetting the second.
But the piece de resistance
is OUP's statement that ICHR's request to withhold publication is simply
not in order! Asserting that "the ICHR decision of publishing these volumes
was implicit when the final manuscripts were handed over to us", the OUP
is virtually trying to arm-twist ICHR into consenting to publishing tomes
that may have glaring errors of the kind already noticed in the edition
for 1943.
With hindsight, it would
seem that OUP has enjoyed a rather cozy relationship with the hitherto
Left-dominated ICHR, which made it possible for it to dispense with formalities
such as receiving a manuscript through prescribed channels. The termination
of the services of Coordinating (and de facto) Editor Dr. Basudev Chatterjee,
coupled with ICHR's decision to invoke certain formal clauses in the legal
agreement, must have sent the alarm bells ringing in the organization.
Hence the desperate attempt to morally blackmail ICHR by claiming that
the volumes are at the threshold of being printed, and that considerable
investments have been made in the process.
Even if this were true,
the OUP has no right to refuse to accommodate the legitimate concerns of
the client and copyright holder on a matter of such extreme national sensitivity
and importance. Matters such as losses incurred can, and are, settled through
mutual negotiations. In this instance, however, the OUP has taken some
liberty with the truth, as the concerned historians had utilized ICHR facilities
to have the selected documents for each volume fed into the computer, and
had handed over the same to the publisher on a floppy disk, though this
was OUP's responsibility under the formal agreement. Hence, far from incurring
costs, OUP actually benefited at ICHR's expense. However, such pecuniary
gains are the least of my concerns.
My point is that OUP
appears to have taken an ideological position on the critical issue of
how India is to record the history of its freedom struggle for posterity.
The concerned authorities in India must take due note of this, if necessary
by taking up the matter with the parent body.
Left historians meanwhile,
remain unabashed at the exposure of their deeds of omission and commission.
When Dr. Basudev Chatterjee was re-assigned the volume for 1938 (originally
prepared by Dr. P.N. Chopra), Dr. Mushirul Hasan was given the 1939 volume
(also submitted by Chopra). Chatterjee has since published his three-part
volume without acknowledging Chopra's contribution, but Hasan's is nowhere
on the horizon. I would not have mentioned this had Hasan not launched
a vituperative attack on the HRD Ministry's "mindless ideological crusade.rise
of intolerance.the bizarre ICHR episode." in an article on brain drain!
(Indian Express, 22 March 2000).
Hasan bemoans the appointment
of professors "without expecting them to write a book." He should know.
In ICHR's Sources on Nationalist Movement Series, conceived in the early
1970s, only Dr. B.L. Grover submitted his volume (1899-1902) for the period
1858-1905 under General Editor Prof. Bipan Chandra. Neither Prof. S.R.
Mehrotra (1858-85) nor Chandra himself (1885-86) submitted their volumes,
though each historian was paid in full, in advance.
Four volumes for the
1905-1919 period with Prof. T.K. Ravindran as General Editor, equally divided
between Dr. Sumit Sarkar and Ravindran, have also failed to see the light
of day, though the Annual Report for 1974-75 states that "work on all these
volumes is reported to be nearing completion." Finally, in the eight volumes
for the 1919-37 period with Prof. Bimal Prasad as General Editor, the major
defaulters include Prasad himself, Prof. Bipan Chandra, and Dr. Gopal Krishna.
