Global award to boost Dalit cause, says publisher

KOLKATA: An Indian publishing house specializing in caste inequalities and identity politics says a prestigious award it has won will help generate support for the country's oppressed communities.

Most unexpectedly, the British Council's prestigious International Publisher of the Year Award was awarded in London to S. Anand's publishing house Navayana.

Anand said: "I think the award will help mobilise international opinion on the caste question which India has always said is its internal matter."

The 33-year-old owner of Chennai-based Navayana received the coveted prize at an International Publisher of the Year (IYPY) awards ceremony at the London Book Fair last month.

Selected by a five-member panel of judges from a shortlist of finalists representing small-to-medium-sized publishers from Argentina, Egypt, Hungary, India, Malta, Romania, Slovenia, South Africa and Syria, Anand got 7,500 pounds as prize money and a free stand at the London Book Fair 2008.

"I do not see the IYPY award as a recognition of my work as an individual because Navayana's work reflects the anxieties and concerns of the anti-caste movement and the Dalit movement in India," he said.

"One of the major concerns of the Dalit movement has been to internationalise the issue of caste discrimination and to get the global community to recognise caste discrimination as equal to racial discrimination and other forms of xenophobia.

"In India, we recently witnessed the ugly sight of privileged caste students sweeping the roads and polishing shoes as a form of protest against reservation. In no other country will we witness such vulgar protests, egged by the media, against a policy that seeks to usher in social equality in society," he added.

Navayana says it seeks to restore sanity in such a society. Its latest book is Kancha Ilaiah's 'Turing the Pot, Tilling the Land: Dignity of Labour in Our Times'. 

"This richly illustrated work seeks to engage children with the issue of caste discrimination. Illustrated by Durgabai Vyam, a Gond adivasi artist, the book is very topical given the heat generated over the issue of reservation. Being the first children's book in India to inculcate dignity of labour and an anti-caste perspective among children, this title is a major pedagogical intervention," explained Anand.

Anand looks forward to returning to the London Book Fair in 2008.

"It will offer an important platform to internationalise caste discrimination and help form a coalition with like-minded players in the British publishing industry. This award is an important step for us and gives a small publisher like us the opportunity to think big," he said.

Founded in 2003, Navayana has sought to fill a serious gap in the Indian publishing market.

Inspired by the ideals of BR Ambedkar - an icon of the anti-caste movement in India - Anand has committed himself to selling books that critically engage with the issue of caste despite distribution and retail bias.

In 2005, along with seven other publishers, Anand established the Independent Publishers Distribution Alternatives, demonstrating that in a deeply conservative market, publishing for social change can also be profitable.