Future of Children's Books in India: More Work Ahead for Cultural Impact

Yogendra Yadav

Last month, I received a beautiful gift: An exquisitely designed, produced and packaged box of ‘Samay Post’, containing 14 children’s books written by Gulzar with fabulous illustrations by Allen Shaw. Most people don’t know that our renowned lyricist-poet is also one of the finest storytellers for children. My favourites in this series are the nonsensical rhymes in Utpatang (which reminds one of Sukumar Ray’s Abol Tabol) and Ye Kavve Kale Kale that demystifies how the crows took their colour. This latest offering from Ektara (Imprint: Jugnu) was no exception.

Earlier, too, I was captivated by the range and quality of their publications for children — mega picture books, posters, poem cards, story books and short novels besides Pluto and Cycle magazines — at their stall at the last World Book Fair. This was a marked improvement over the days when my wife and I desperately searched for quality Indian books for our two children, now 25 and 20, so that they do not become monolingual English-speaking kids, cut off from their Bengali and Hindi heritage. We found that Hindi publications then were only a wee bit better than my childhood staple of bland and text-heavy stories of Akbar-Birbal, Chacha Chowdhary, Tenali Ram and Panchatantra or comics like Vetal or Amar Chitra Katha (an occasional glossy Soviet book was a bonus) and magazines like Champak, Parag and Lotpot. We discovered that the two public sector publishers, the National Book Trust (NBT) and Children’s Book Trust (CBT) had some decent titles — like Rupa Haathi by Mickey Patel — for our children. Occasionally, we found some quality books by independent publishers.

Malu Bhalu by Kamla Bhasin remained the favourite bedtime story for both of our kids. They discovered Tulika Books through Ikki Dokki, a lovely folk tale from Maharashtra and audiobooks of Karadi Tales through the valour of “Raja Kapi”, the monkey king. Katha Books brought for them tales from other Indian languages. But we had to hunt for these new publications. Such exceptions aside, the general quality of storytelling, illustrations and production of children’s books in India did not stand up to the competition from Europe and America.

This was a pity in a country with a rich oral and written heritage of mythologies and storytelling. We found to our shame that none of our books were a patch on The Gruffalo or other books by Julia Donaldson. We finally lost this cultural battle to Harry Potter. Feluda’s adventures at the Golden Fortress were overtaken by the witchcraft at Hogwarts. If the quality of children’s literature is a measure of the quality of life of a nation, we were not doing very well.

Two months ago, I landed up in Chennai at the office-cum-shop of Tulika Books, one of the pioneers of the new wave of children’s books, to see if the state of children’s literature had changed from those times. Indeed it had. Building on the success of early publications like Ikki Dokki, Tulika now has a large collection of a thousand-plus titles across nine languages. Tulika founder Radhika Menon gave me an overview of the big changes in children’s books in India, mainly those published in English. Besides some big global names, it is mainly small and independent publications (like Ektara, Eklavya, Pratham, Katha, Karadi Tales, Tara, Pickle Yolk, Duckbill and Talking Cub) that lead a new wave of experimental and innovative trends in children’s literature that reflect Indian ethos and reality.

A recent volume Children’s Books: An Indian Story, edited by Shailaja Menon and Sandhya Rao, helps us go beyond anecdotal evidence and see the big picture of this new trend. The last three decades have seen a sudden expansion in the sheer volume of children’s books, also reflected in an expansion in the number of publishers, authors, illustrators, etc. The readers have expanded too, as there is a class now that can afford to go beyond textbooks. There is also a wider range of genres including graphic novels and age group-specific books, including young-adult literature. And there is a discernible improvement in the quality of design, translation and production. At the same time, the two editors conclude that “given India’s large, diverse and multilingual character, both the production and consumption of children’s books are mere drops in terms of actual needs”.

Children’s books (other than textbooks) amount to just about one per cent of all books produced in India. Their producers and consumers are still largely “middle” class (a euphemism for the top 10 per cent) and “upper” caste urban Indians. It is hard to make a career out of writing for children. This market is still dominated by imported or Western books, poorly produced adaptations of mythological books and novelty or activity books. For me, the most concerning part is that much of this upsurge is limited to English. Hindi is a partial exception. Besides Ektara, Eklavya (the publisher of Chakmak magazine) has moved beyond educational publications to open their “Pitara” of imaginative story and picture books. Pratham Books, Katha and Tulika offer good Hindi books as a part of their titles in multiple languages. I believe the state of affairs is poorer in other Indian languages despite a strong legacy (of Gijubhai Badheka in Gujarati), famous writers (like Sukumar Ray in Bengali) and movements (like KSSP in Kerala). This is borrowed wisdom and I would be happy to be wrong, but it seems that the new wave of children’s books is very weak or non-existent in other languages, except for occasional pieces in children’s magazines that most languages still have.

We may have now reached a tipping point. This fledgling new wave of children’s books can be consolidated into a cultural movement that can open up a better future for coming generations. Here are four things you and I can do to make this happen.

First, as parents, we can buy books for children, use books as birthday presents and “return gifts”. We can focus our purchase on Indian books, not for any nationalist reason but for the simple reason that children relate better to books that reflect their own lived experiences. But buying books is not enough. We must read books to and with children. And ensure that children read books in their “mother tongue”, the Indian language spoken at home and in the locality. Remember, children learn best in their mother tongue and multilingual children are better learners.

Second, established authors can write more for children. This is not a lower, simpler or didactic form of literature. Vinod Kumar Shukla, arguably the leading Hindi writer of our times, shifted his focus to writing for children and young adults. Others can follow his lead.

Third, “civil society” and private philanthropy can support this effort by subsidising the cost of producing quality books in Indian languages, supporting workshops for book writing and fellowships to authors and illustrators for books. The Sahitya Akademi has instituted Bal Sahitya Puruskar, but we also need hundreds of awards to be instituted in every language for authors, illustrators, designers, editors and publishers of children’s books. I hope Punjabi, Telugu, Tamil and Bengali NRIs who are nostalgic about their language are reading this.

Finally, the government can step in with well-funded programmes on public libraries and bulk purchasing of quality children’s books. Karnataka’s Revitalisation of Rural Public Libraries could serve as a model for the rest of the country, especially Hindi states that lag in the culture of public libraries. If a fraction of the money spent on free textbooks is devoted to supplying colourful and joyful storybooks to school libraries and anganwadis, we could serve our future generations better.

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