IRB

AS we celebrated the 125th anniversary of this magnificent newspaper, another, but sad, anniversary of a print publication passed almost unnoticed.

September marked the second anniversary of the demise of a remarkable venture in Indian publishing, the Indian Review of Books, just one issue short of what would have been its 10th birthday. I remember looking forward with anticipation to what the IRB would have made of my novel Riot, which was slated to have been reviewed in the magazine's September 2001 issue. But the August issue arrived with an editorial headlined "End of a Dream": "it is with a deep sense of sadness," the magazine wrote, "that we announce the closure of IRB." India's best literary journal had finally been defeated by the hard mathematics of the market.

Founded by K.S. Padmanabhan of the highly-respected Madras publishing house East-West Books and backed financially largely by his own resources, the IRB had carved a niche for itself amongst discerning readers — but not, alas, amongst advertisers. The magazine was distinguished by some of the best writing about books one could find in India. Its contributors, including some of the finest minds in the country, eschewed both the jargon-laden self-importance of academic journals and the superficial plot-summaries of the popular press, offering instead the thoughtful insights and provocative judgments that true book-lovers value everywhere.

One did not have to like everything that appeared between its covers to appreciate the worth of the endeavour, in a country which has only recently begun to engage in a grand national conversation about literature. I welcomed the arrival in the mail of each issue with genuine excitement: I knew it would provide both instruction and delight.

"Are we aborning, like Chesterton's donkey, at some moment when the moon is blood?" the editors had asked themselves in their inaugural issue.

They knew they were undertaking a risk. But they saw that book publishing had finally come of age in India, and they felt that a good review journal would serve to bring "book and reader together".

India was at last ready for a swadeshi equivalent to the New York or London Review of Books. Most of India's major English-language publishing houses were not much older than IRB; some, indeed, had come into existence since its founding. One would have expected the two sister professions to make common cause.

Publishers need well-informed readers, and one might have imagined they would want to support a high-quality literary magazine in order to enhance their own sales. But their advertising was minimal; one could turn page after page of the IRB without finding the prose interrupted by an ad.

Advertising is the oxygen of any newspaper.

The first reality of the "free press" is that you must not take the adjective literally, since it is anything but free: there are always bills to be paid that vastly exceed what the subscription price can bring in. The IRB's subscription lists barely crossed the 3,000 mark, and with modest advertising revenue, the economics of magazine publishing meant that the IRB was losing some Rs. 50,000 an issue. (Note to idealistic students: economics always trumps literature.) After 10 years of struggle, Mr. Padmanabhan and his well-wishers came to the reluctant conclusion that the IRB was never going to be able to pay for itself. Even the most generous blood donor cannot sustain an indefinite haemmorhage, and Mr. Padmanabhan, the mainstay of the Madras Book Club and a man with books in his blood, ultimately had to stanch the flow.

Today, two years later, there is still no adequate substitute for the IRB. The Book Review, published in Delhi, miraculously seems to keep afloat, but it makes fewer concessions to non-academic readers than the IRB, and too many of its reviews seem to be written by professors for the delectation of other professors. Biblio is often more readable, but its publication schedule over the years has been erratic, and its choice of subject matter idiosyncratic. Neither has ever covered the range of books that the IRB managed to treat in each issue — novels, serious non-fiction, travel and cookery books, children's stories. The loss to India's readers is still enduring.

And yet — as the old song asked, does it have to be this way? Surely there must be, in our newly-globalising economy, some business house that can afford half a lakh of rupees a month — not just to support a good cause, but to reach an educated clientele? It costs one of our multinational corporations more than that amount to produce a few seconds of one of their television commercials. The editorial staff and infrastructure of the IRB are still in place at East-West, along with a network of willing contributors and even the old subscription lists. All they need is a benefactor. I am sure I would not be the only literate Indian consumer to say that if Coke or Pepsi came to the rescue of the IRB, I would gladly switch my thirst-driven allegiance to them. A brand that sustains a magazine of ideas has a greater claim on my loyalty than one which is endorsed by a cricketer or an actor.

So here's the challenge to any corporate chieftain who happens to be reading this column. Take on the resurrection of the country's best book review magazine. Put your name on the cover if you must; give yourself a few ad pages in return for the funds; but let the editors continue to celebrate and promote the joy of reading. An IRB may never make it to a 125th anniversary, but they deserve better than to have fallen before their 10th.