Feminism, the world over, is a complex phenomenon. It can be both unifying as well as polarising. Urvashi Butalia tells ANANYA BORGOHAIN about her experiences as the co-founder of India’s first feminist publishing house
Author, publisher and historian Urvashi Butalia is the co-founder of India’s first feminist publishing house, Kali for Women (1984). Her expertise also entails assembling oral histories, which has produced one of the most significant and evocative books on Partition, The Other Side of Silence. She is currently the owner and publisher of Zubaan Books, which is an imprint of Kali for Women. Butalia articulates her perceptions of feminism and publishing in India. She discusses their merits and demerits as well as the extent to which they are reaching the rural and uneducated masses with restricted means. Excerpts:
What is your earliest memoryIJ
I have grown up in Ambala, then in Punjab. My father was a journalist and mother a teacher. They were both Partition refugees; we were not particularly privileged but I grew up in an educated ambience. We moved to Delhi when I was 10 and by now I see myself as a Delhi person. I completed my BA and MA in English literature from the University of Delhi. However, I didn’t want to pursue literature professionally and shifted towards publishing.
How did Kali for Women happenIJ
Having completed my studies, I was already working in a publishing house and had by then discovered how women writers lack the access points to being heard. I had taken up the issue with my bosses but they exhibited no inclination towards it. That is when it struck me that I should take it upon myself and start a publishing house for women writers. I left my job in 1978 and started teaching a course in publishing in the College of Vocational Studies. I always had the idea for a feminist publishing house and later Ritu Menon offered to join in the endeavour. We began to look for manuscripts to publish as well as for editorial consultancy jobs to fund ourselves. I had worked with Zed Books in England for two years and negotiated with them for the same. In July 1984, we finally started Kali for Women.
How did it fareIJ
We never really faced strong opposition but there was a lot of scepticism. This was three decades back and there were many pressing questions—Can women run businessesIJ Would they make good politiciansIJ Are they thoughtful writersIJ We were modest in both needs and means but were surprised by the reception that we got. Our books got read and written about. Soon other publishers moved in and began to look at publishing as a prospective field.
Have the above mentioned questions been answeredIJ
The answers have developed now. Feminism in India started in the mid-1970s. It had then begun to infiltrate into the consciousness of the people. Kali was a reflection of that milieu. Today, we see women in all fields, be it shipping, marketing, academia, politics, and so on. Even today, we are not publishers in the traditional sense, commercialism is not our agenda and we don’t hide it. Our objective is to break free from regression.
When you collected the oral histories of rural women, how much authorship did they enjoy in essenceIJ
Women in the rural set-up are never really free from patriarchy. So when we were assembling their oral histories, the agenda was to understand both their voices and silences. Many times, they are conditioned to say what you probably want to hear. Moreover, their vocabulary is challenged. So trust has to be built over time. We try to furnish them with the autonomy to voice their own opinions. We tried to build forums for them so that they could be confident of themselves. We also transcribed and wrote what they had to say.
What about feminism in rural India being distanced from the English-speaking, educated urbanistaIJ
let me give you the example of Manipur. Manipuri women hold the economy, the market there. They are culturally progressed and independent, and very essential to the State’s financial system for that matter. Even in the urban setting, today we have women taxi drivers. Today feminism, in both rural and urban arenas, is more pronounced and visible. We have also come up with (transexual) Mona’s story, as well as the histories of female cab drivers, and so on.
Tell us about the project, Shareer ki jaankari.
The women in a project called Women’s Development Programme partcipicated in collaboration with some NGOs and women groups in Rajasthan. They conducted workshops with assistance from resource people and formed a book titled Shareer ki jaankari. It was on a woman’s anatomy; they had drawn pictures of the naked female body and circulated a couple of copies in the village. These women said that the programme authorities and the villagers found the content to be pornographic since in reality one never sees a village woman naked. So they covered the women in the pictures but formed little flaps that pointed towards their body parts when lifted. These were village women with limited access to education or the urban conscience. They came to us at Kali and asked if we would like to publish them. The only condition they imposed was that any copy sold to a village woman would be sold at cost and we don’t make profits over that. 2000 copies were printed but these women had already publicised the effort so well that the copies were all pre-sold. Back then, it was priced at Rs 12, now it costs Rs 50. Not a single copy was sold through a bookshop, even the Ministry of Youth Affairs recommended it. We also publish Irom Sharmila’s collection of poems in both Manipuri and English, and the money we earn from it will go to her cause.
Why do we not hear of more feminist publishing houses in IndiaIJ
Not that there aren’t any, they are now evolving. There is the publishing house named Stree in Kolkata and Women’s Imprint in Kerala etc who have been contributing to women’s writings.
As a publisher, how do you look at the rise of the e-book format as well as the issue of royalty when it comes to photocopying books in universitiesIJ
E-books are the new way to go. They might not be selling well right now and the market will take some time to bloom but it’s refreshing. As for photocopying books in universities, I feel that there has to be a balanced system of doing so. Abroad, the Copyright Clearing Agencies are attached to universities and when a student photocopies a book, a certain percentage of the earning would go to the author. In India, it’s the photocopy shop that enjoys total monopoly and the publishers receive the flak. We believe that books should be low-priced and not every publisher is earning money hand over fist. But there has to be a way to reach a balance, there is no need to polarise the publishers and students. The academics may tend to disagree but if it is a book written by them then they would be the first ones to argue for their own royalty.
Do literature festivals help the publishersIJ
They are beneficial for the authors as well as the publishers. There could be too many assumptions if you tend to be too cynical of them. It is the privileged lot that is critical of these fests. Exposure and readership grow in them and tremendous feedback is received. People come and listen to the speakers, they buy the books, show an inclination to read.
How does your work shape your visionIJ
I have learned a great deal from every book that I have published. They open up a multitude of perspectives for me. Political perspectives that grow inside a woman are not static and there is a lot to cover in said context. For instance, in the mid-1990s, we were the first publishing house to study women in the context of religious fundamentalism. The Hinduvta movement was recruiting women in their cause and we delved into the case of Sadhvi Rithambara, who presented herself as a saint but was an aggressive woman. That was an alternative perception of a woman I had and we commissioned a book on the same, titled Women and the Hindu Right. In another instance, I was returning from Kashmir and on my way back, I was wondering that while we have several accounts of the Kashmir issue, we have none that addresses the women. So in 2000 we came up with Speaking Peace. There is a varied range of things to learn. Feminism is complex, it is not just about equality but also to recognise human dignity and valuing the right to life.