The story of Lawyer’s Book Stall in Guwahati, Assam is almost as old as that of India. Established in 1942, the bookstore and publisher has published important Assamese intellectuals of the twentieth century in Assamese and English and fostered the growth of modern and experimental Assamese writing, including books by Saurav Kumar Chaliha, Megan Kachari, Bhabendra Nath Saikia, Hiren Gohain, and Sameer Tanti.
It is an iconic presence in the famed Pan Bazaar area of Guwahati, which has historically been the literary, cultural, and educational hub of the state. Lawyer’s is flanked by Cotton University and other bookshops such as Western Book Depot; it is in one of the busiest parts of the city and has been a major site of political demonstrations and student protests.
Pan Bazaar is currently a shadow of its pre-pandemic self as Guwahati emerges from the sudden curfew that was imposed to control the spread of coronavirus and enters a new phase of pandemic lockdown with strictly enforced controls over human movement and gatherings. Bhaskar Dutta-Baruah, the third-generation owner of Lawyer’s Book Stall, spoke to Scroll.in about the way forward for Assamese publishing, even as Guwahati struggles to survive under the lockdown. Excerpts from the interview:
Before we begin to talk specifically about the effect of the pandemic, could you please describe Lawyer’s Book Stall to readers who might not be familiar with its history?
If I were to summarise who we are, I would say that we are a very proud regional publisher from Assam. We are proud of our identity and our roots. The history of Lawyer’s can be traced back to the endeavours of my grandfather Bichitra Narayan Dutta-Baruah and his brother, Hari Narayan Dutta-Baruah, in the 1920s. They were enterprising and well-educated, with a strong sense of regional identity and patriotism.
My grandfather was a lawyer but he decided to give up law and get into publishing instead, which included publishing his brother’s books. They started out with a small printing press called Uma Press, named after their mother, in Nalbari, before moving to Guwahati. The duo published Chitra Bhagavad, which was quite expensive to produce and was published through the patronage of the king of Gauripur.
After moving to Guwahati my grandfather founded Lawyer’s Book Stall (thus retaining some connection to his legal past), and his brother founded Dutta-Baruah and Co, another publishing wing. While my great-uncle published religious texts, my grandfather focused on publishing textbooks and general interest trade books. That was our beginning, in a nutshell.
The growth of Lawyer’s Book Stall is also connected to the development of modern Assamese writing. Why do you think it is such an important space in the postcolonial literary space of Assam?
It goes back to my grandfather, who built and fostered relationships with writers and several important intellectuals of Assam, such as Birinchi Kumar Baruah, Banikanta Kakati, Hem Barua, etc, who in turn found an English language publisher in Lawyer’s. This was, however, taken to a whole new level by my father, Khagendra Narayan Dutta-Baruah (Bhutu), who was extremely encouraging of new writers. This had its advantages, as well some challenges commercially, but he was passionate about promoting new talent.
At one point, my father was publishing about a hundred new titles a year, besides the reprints, which is a huge number for an independent publisher even by today’s standards. Lawyer’s was an opportunity for important writers and literary critics such as Birinchi Baruah, Banikanta Kakati, and Maheswar Neog to break away from their Delhi-based publishers and get published at home. And so we began to publish not just Assamese literature but also non-fiction books on the Assamese language and literary criticism.
We play a special role in the publishing scene in the region and have a different relationship with – and sense of responsibility to – the public compared to the larger national or international English language publishing houses. We are always under a lot of scrutiny. We may be publishing a hundred titles, but if even one of them is of low quality we are sure to face a lot of criticism. The relationship between the readers, the writers, and us is like that of a close-knit family, and we have to be very careful about the quality of the work that we put out.
We are not a big company, we are a family-run organisation. I remember going into the store as a young boy and seeing famous Assamese writers and intellectuals sitting around my father and chatting. I cannot imagine our process of publishing books to be any less intimate and different.
The journey however has not always been smooth. There have been major setbacks such as the devastating fire in 2004 and the political turmoil in Assam as the insurgency intensified in the 1990s. How does the COVID-19 pandemic compare to those?
This question has to be approached in multiple ways. In some respects, some of the unfortunate events we’ve been through have been Lawyer’s-centric and have affected primarily us and not others. Perhaps the first blow we faced was the death of my father. After he died some writers got jittery and left the publishing house. I cannot blame them for this. They had a very special relationship with my father since he was deeply involved in the entire publishing process, besides being a translator himself.
For some time, my mother Rina Dutta-Baruah took care of the store. When I came back from London to manage the business, my main challenge was to reorganise and consolidate it. And then came the 2004 fire. It was a huge setback, and almost forced us to leave our current location as the circumstances had become very difficult. Although we are still recovering from the effects, we have managed to get our publishing and bookselling business back on track to some extent.
The years of political disturbance, such as the Assam agitation and the insurgency, have affected everyone in Assam and not just us. Curfews, bandhs, and strikes are perhaps more temporary compared to the long pandemic lockdown but they have created a general atmosphere of political uncertainty in the region for several decades. In some ways our “lockdown” began earlier than in the rest of India, since the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act began to affect normal life in Assam from December 2019 onwards, and the Pan Bazaar area was a major space for the protests and police action.
The COVID-19 pandemic presents a lot of challenges because it is a situation that affects the entire industry and not just Lawyer’s. It is going to impact some more than others. After the first lockdown was announced, the situation was relatively manageable as we did not have any coronavirus cases in the region and we were still getting regular orders from booksellers in other parts of Assam and the North-East. However, the atmosphere has changed significantly since the second lockdown, which is particularly draconian. Since it is targeted at Guwahati and the virus is spreading in the region without a clear idea of when things can be expected to be under control, we think we are going to be in trouble for some time to come.
We’ve been facing a lot of issues as an industry for several years now, and some of them are serious, with major long-term implications. The pandemic is playing out in an already difficult publishing landscape and is compounding these existing obstacles.
For instance, all publishers are influenced significantly by external factors such as the government’s educational policies. The education system has steadily become one that is simply churning out white-collar labourers, and people have lost the time and inclination to read on their own beyond their textbooks (sometimes not even textbooks, but only commercially bound and published exam notes!). As a result, educational publishing has become a major chunk of the business of Assamese publishers, and has eaten into the quality of books from the region.
I also have to mention another important obstacle to increasing and diversifying the Assamese readership: the lackadaisical initiatives in updating the processes to produce ebooks and digital editions in the Assamese font. Although I may have found a solution to a speedier transitioning to digital, I am not sure if it would be wise to make significant investments in technology and new reading options during the pandemic.
Aside from future plans that have to be put on hold, how is the pandemic affecting Lawyer’s Book Stall in a more immediate way? Are you trying out any strategies to cope?
From a brick-and-mortar bookseller perspective, we have been affected badly. Online retailers such as Amazon too have impacted us negatively for some time. However, from a publisher’s point of view, these platforms have actually helped us reach a wider audience. The demand for our books on Amazon has gone up eight times over pre-pandemic levels.
We started a book delivery service in Guwahati when the lockdown was announced and even sourced books that we did not have in the bookshop if people asked for them. A lot of the initial requests were for textbooks, especially at the beginning of the lockdown, but that has dwindled now, maybe because the exams are over.
You have been in online discussions with other regional publishers across the country during the lockdown. Can you explain what this organisation is and what purposes it is serving right now?
This gathering of publishers online is not a legal entity or a formal organisation, but we are finding it helpful since we’re able to guide one another through problems that we have been facing individually in various parts of India. We could not have conceived of a platform like this without the pandemic, so that has been one good outcome so far.
It started quite casually as we met over coffee in the mornings over Zoom and we just tried to make some sense of the current crisis. It is, however, starting to take a serious turn now and we are attempting to think collectively on how to deal with this difficult situation. Yesterday, for instance, we had a discussion on the Frankfurt Book Fair, which is largely digital this year, which makes participating a lot more feasible for some publishers around the world.
Unfortunately, I am the only person from Assam and North-East India in this group. I think we need more publishers to offer their ideas and take the industry forward. One person or organisation cannot speak for an entire industry or market. There are many other publishers in Assam with brilliant writers on their roster, and it would be good to see them participate in forums such as this.
Do you also hope for any form of governmental or institutional support?
I wouldn’t like to talk about something as petty as government purchases. In fact, if the government were to purchase books directly from publishers like they used to, I would go so far as to criticise the publishers, because this can easily become a way to offload sub-standard books. However, there is one area in which the government can play an important role, and that is in the sphere of translation.
There are a lot of Assamese books that should have been published internationally but have not, owing to a lack of access. By now I have carved out a niche in the industry and have a certain amount of access to publishing networks outside of Assam and India, but it would be extremely helpful to have institutional support for translations.
I can’t approach an English or French publisher with a book written in Assamese, I need to have it in translation. If the government could initiate a translation project where they support the translation of Assamese books into other languages, it would help in the long-term. It could even be a way to have cultural exchanges facilitated by embassies between different countries, like the French and German governments do. If not the Indian government, perhaps the government of Assam could look into this.
Besides, translation costs are a huge financial burden on individual publishers, but would not be a big investment for the government. A little help would go a long way in enabling greater access to readers and markets for Assamese publishers and books.
Moreover, the government supports the academic publishing industry by providing financial support to university libraries for buying books. While this is probably as good a time as any to make sure that these procurements are regulated properly to check that the money is not misused, I would like to emphasise that the government should diversify its spending to partner with independent publishers too. It would help us continue to publish books of a high literary worth and enable the entire industry to flourish. We have a great portfolio of books, we need support for translation so that our culture can be showcased and promoted abroad in a meaningful way.
Do you think it will become even harder to request help from the government after the pandemic, given the overall economic crisis?
I don’t think so. Supporting translation is not an enormous financial commitment for the government. In fact, this would be a good way to boost the economy, as strategic partnerships with independent publishers will enable us to publish more. It will help others in the industry too, such as printers and distributors, to carry on and rebuild their businesses.
Assam’s readership has by and large been quite multilingual, and generations have been reading in Assamese, Bangla, English, and Hindi, to name the major languages. Do you think the popularity of non-English literatures has decreased in recent times?
The readership of Assamese books is certainly decreasing, but we cannot force people to read in Assamese. What we can do is come up with creative ways of attracting readers. If I were a child, I would definitely go for a shiny, colourful, well-produced English book rather than a dusty, black-and-white Assamese book.
Unfortunately, since we are a relatively small publisher our print runs are limited so it is often too expensive to publish books with high production value. I had commissioned an illustrated colour edition in English of the classic Assamese children’s tales Buri Aair Xaadhu by Lakshminath Bezbaruah, but I could not go ahead with publishing it as the costs were prohibitive. Instead of shelving the project entirely, I decided to print in black-and-white.
If the government could also support translations for children through grants or sponsor publishers to cover certain costs – partially, for we don’t want to be at the beck and call of our sponsors – it would help us produce editions that are attractive and spark an interest in Assamese books among young readers. I believe we need to work towards creating and fostering a new readership.
Things have changed considerably since I was in school and my friends would ask me about books from Lawyer’s. Now only the larger publishing houses like Scholastic are popular and accessible. We need the government to take the publishing industry seriously – perhaps the Sahitya Sabha could play a proactive role.
Considering the significant role of Lawyer’s Book Stall in fostering the literary culture and promoting new writers from Assam, how do you envision your role in continuing this legacy once the adverse conditions during the pandemic subside?
To be honest, I am not doing much. Unfortunately, I am not my father. Whereas my father used to publish a hundred titles a year or a brand new collection of stories from a promising writer, I have restricted our publishing. Our annual catalogues are shorter now because the market is small; print-runs have diminished generally across the world and especially in India.
We cannot afford to restrict our print-runs further owing to the constraints placed on us by the pandemic, especially as we don’t do custom or print-on-demand publishing except in some cases to keep the backlist alive. We have found well-publicised titles and book launches to be helpful in boosting sales numbers, so we are thinking how best to transition towards having more virtual interactions with readers as the lockdown continues, and, hopefully, even after the pandemic is over.
I publish new books that I believe will cover our production costs and do well to a certain extent in the market. I have to be careful because we receive a great amount of criticism if even one title among a hundred is sub-standard. So my priority is good writing and good translations of our Assamese books, even books by writers from outside the Lawyer’s family. I think English translations in particular are extremely important because if a book is translated into English first, I can then start thinking about further translations into other European languages.
My regret is that one of the finest modern writers of Assam, Saurav Kumar Chaliha, passed away before we could discuss translating his writing into English. He would have been his own best translator as his English was excellent too. I think that once our books are translated and appreciated at an international level, the industry as a whole in the region will value Assamese writers and books in a greater way.
Sneha Khaund is a doctoral student at the Comparative Literature program of Rutgers University.
This series of articles on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on publishing is curated by Kanishka Gupta.