NBT director MA SIKANDAR talks about the journey of city’s World Book Fair and what makes it one of the hottest literary events
What are the highlights of the New Delhi World Book Fair 2015IJ
Singapore will be the guest of honour country and the focus country will be South Korea. Since the time we started the book fair as an annual event in 2012, we have tried our best to engage both the publishers and readers through various literary events and programmes. In 2010, we did 30 book-related events like discussions and seminars. It grew to 90 the next year and has kept increasing. last year, we ended at 500 programmes and this year we are targeting around 600 events. These programmes give an opportunity to readers to interact with authors and publishers.
There will be more than 40 delegates from all over the world. We have also opened an ‘Events Corner’ in the foreign pavilion at the request of embassies to sponsor some literary programmes. There was also a growing demand for authors and readers wanting to meet each other and so I created the ‘Authors Corner’. This time we are hosting over 400 authors. This is also the first time that we have given a platform to dalit authors to express their views. In short we have created a very democratic platform.
In this era of e-books, do you think the value of tangible books fadingIJ
E-book concept is new and right now it is seen mostly in major cities like Delhi and Mumbai. However, you cannot deny the charm of holding a book, whiff of new crisp pages as you turn them and the joy of the printed letter. Books will always have its fans, e-books cannot take that away. But we live in a diverse country and there are places where not even normal books are available. NBT is working hard towards this line so it is not a threat and is also bringing out e-books.
Share with us your journey of organising the book fair.
I consider myself privileged to be the director of NBT and have been doing my duties for the last three years. This is the fourth time I am spearheading the International Book Fair because it was a bi-annual book fair till 2012. In 2012, the then HRD minister announced that the fair would become an annual event.
How has the fair evolved since thenIJ
It has become favourite among Delhi readers because there are not many book fairs happening here as compared to the Southern states. We have tried to make this book fair as per international standards and bring in more publishers and interest the people. I bluntly told foreign publishers that if they wanted to conduct business they would have to come to India. That is why we organise a CEO meet where more than 100 CEO’s from India and about 35 from other countries sit to exchange their ideas and strategies. It is a convergence that is happening and Indian publishers are not only gaining confidence about their business but also take pride in it. We have also started a New Delhi Rights Table where we exchange copyrights between different Indian languages. Over the years we have addressed all the concerns of the publishers and as a result, last year’s book fair had a footfall of over a million — the highest in the decade.
We made the fair very interactive too. For instance in 2010, the success of the book fair was decided on the number of book stalls and the approximate sales. We never see what return investment we are getting. We are investing in the people so that their intellectual capacity may come out which will ultimately contribute to the growth of economy and employment creation. In 2012 I deliberately brought in student volunteers from different colleges and replaced the hosts with them because I wanted people who had a passion for knowledge and had a desire to read.
How is the international participation this timeIJ
It has increased by one third. last time the foreign pavilion took up 1,500 sq m but this year we had to add another 1,000 sq m because we have invited France, the guest of honour country from the 2013 annual book fair. In 2016 China will be our guest country.