Books, Creative Icons of Human Culture by Nandkumar Kamat Navhind Times on the Web: Opinions Monday, April 24, 2006
IT is very rare to come across institutions, which keep track of the important international days. So I was pleased to receive an invitation from Margao's premier cultural and literary institution Gomant Vidya Niketan to deliver a lecture on the occasion of the "World book and copyrights day", April 23. UNESCO has been celebrating this day since 1996. The date corresponds to death of Shakespeare and Cervantes. In Catalonia, every book purchaser receives a rose on this day. The UNESCO selects an important city as "book city' every year. This year Turin, Italy has been declared as the "World Book city". I have no idea when Panaji or Margao would deserve this honour. The Portuguese introduced the Printing Press in Goa but at the same time they destroyed the heritage of rich local manuscripts. A few which were salvaged have been systematically researched by eminent scholars like A K Priolkar, V B Prabhudessai, Laxmikant Prabhu Bhembre, Jose Pereira, Olivinho Gomes and Gajanan Ghantkar. Goans did not equitably profit from the introduction of European Printing Press. The damage was partially repaired after the Portuguese established a central library- 'Bibliotheca nacional' and journalism in Goa got a flying start in the 19th century. But despite a great historic beginning, Goa lost its pioneer position in Indian sub-continent and in Asia as a center of book publication. Almost all the famous Goan intellectuals were great admirers and collectors of books. After the liberation of Goa stalwarts like B D Satoskar had launched a library movement. It took the government 30 years after liberation to bring the Goa Public libraries act. But were the politicians sincere in promoting books and good reading habits? More than Rs 10 crore were collected as "library cess" but even today there are villages and educational institutions starved of funds to purchase good books. The intellectual and ideological maturity of any politician in Goa can be assessed by the books which they read, if at all they happen to find time to do so. The European Union has launched "get caught reading" a novel project under its Culture 2000 objectives to popularise books. Prominent political personalities are involved in this project. Books are the finest creative icons of human culture. The Mexican poet and essayist Gabriel Zaid wrote an interesting book- Reading and publishing in an age of abundance. Zaid mentions that a new book is published in the world every 30 seconds. He writes that just to read the list of authors and titles of all the books available in the world would take us 15 years. It is impossible for anyone to read 99.9 percent of all the books published in the world. Even if no new title is published Zaid says that it would take us a quarter of million years to read every book published. The University of California maintains a database on the information explosion in the world. It reports that an estimated 65 million titles have been published so far. The US library of Congress has 26 million books. UNESCO estimates that every year 10 million new titles are published. But Zaid says that as compared to 100 million children born every year this number is still small. We need to learn some lessons from USA. Globally, about 2750 million copies of all types of books are sold every year. The Americans buy a phenomenal 1100 million copies. USA also accounts for 40 per cent of all the printed material. NGOs like "First Book" collect donations of books for poor children in America under "gift a book free" mission. This mission has resulted in donating 30 million books to those American children who had no resources to afford good books. India has very few projects like the one launched by the American NGO. India does not appear anywhere on the map of global bibliophiles despite ranking third in the number of English book publications. A Canadian survey reported that Finland, Denmark, Holland are ahead in book publication per a million population. Even Portugal ranks well, far above USA, Japan, Russia and France. India has 16,000 publishers. The book trade is growing by leaps and bounds. It has already crossed a sales turnover of Rs. 100 billions. In 1991 India exported books worth Rs. 33 crores. In 2003 this figure increased to Rs. 460 crores and may end at Rs. 1000 crores soon. But we are nowhere near China where the popularity of books is growing at unprecedented rate. Today the Chinese account for 12 to 15 percent of all the books published. Reading habits are not definitely dying in our country. But we are facing a peculiar problem which advanced countries did not encounter. In other countries the electronic media was introduced after high literacy levels had been achieved. In India, before attaining a high level of literacy the Television entered every nook and corner. But the picture seems encouraging in some neo rich urban pockets of our country. A 2005 survey of consumer reading habits in 30 countries put the Indians at the top in reading habits. The survey found that urban Indians on average spend 10.7 hours a week on reading as compared to the global average of 6.3 hours. The British and the Americans seem to spend more time in front of the Television. The British opinion makers are no doubt alarmed over this situation. They have found that the British are getting less leisure time for reading. What's the situation in India? We're a country of 1050 millions. But it takes years for an edition of just 5,000 copies to be sold. Very few people keep aside a share of their domestic budget for purchasing good books. The library movement has not really reached the grass roots level where people are hungry for information and knowledge. The Marathi book publishers happily report that more books are sold in rural Maharashtra than in the urban areas. To those who can't afford the books the government should purchase large number of copies of good books in vernacular languages. Library movement is a mockery in Goa. Let us take the case of a two years old village library building built from the Rajyasabha MP, Mr Eduardo Faleiro's MPLADS funds at Santa Cruz. It stays locked without having a single book. On the other side people from Pernem, Sattari, Canacona are demanding library premises and funds for books. We need a vibrant book culture in Goa if we intend to invest in the future of the new generation. Let our politicians read and discuss good books in public. Let us aim to deserve "World book city'' honour for Goa someday in future. Hopefully! http://www.navhindtimes.com/stories.php?part=news&Story_ID=042411 ~(^^)~ Avelino _____________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. 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