Our Nation Is In Dire Need Of A National Book Policy: Aditi Maheshwari
Aditi Maheshwari, CEO of Vani Prakashan, talks about the pivotal role the publishing group is playing in bringing out the best books across genres By Resham Suhail.
Given the diversity of India, the synergy between the literatures in the Indian languages has been enhanced through translations. “Books are building blocks of a nation and a publisher is the karigar of this wall,” Aditi Maheshwari asserts. While sharing her journey with Vani Prakashan Group, Maheshwari says, “As a kid, there were books or people working with books around me which made me think that this is the only job everyone has in this world.”
Legacy Business
Established in 1963, Vani Prakashan, now a conglomerate in its 60th year, is the largest Hindi publishing group and the winner of Swarn Kamal. Vani Prakashan was established by Dr Premchand Mahesh in 1963, Aditi’s grandfather.
Across print, electronic, and audio, it has published over 12,000 books including the ones acquired through Bharatiya Jnanpith in 2022 which is considered one of the most expensive acquisitions in the world of Hindi literature. With expanding its horizon, Vani Prakashan Group has introduced and the not-for-profit arm Vani Foundation that is dedicated to work in the book ecosystem. With Jaipur BookMark, it established the Vani Foundation Distinguished Translator Award, now in its eighth year.
Women In Charge
With an eye for good print-worthy content, a high-scorer science stream student who switched to arts and then went abroad for business management studies, Aditi has travelled some unconventional roads.
Women in top leadership roles at Vani have never seemed surprising to Maheshwari because she saw her grandmother leading it before her father, the legacy publisher Arun Maheshwari and mother, Ameeta Maheshwari took charge of the group. Talking about the division of roles and responsibilities, she has always been more inclined to brainstorm, book selection, edit and sales-different from what her younger sister Damini looks at which is tech-related part of the business processes. “The journey would not have been complete without my childhood friend and life partner Arun”, she says.
Marching On With Digitisation
Elaborating on the importance of being digitally sound, she says, “During lockdown days, Vani understood the need of connecting readers and authors to help the society sail through the gloom”.
She further narrates that Vani Prakashan Group has come a long way from being one of the first publishing houses to start digitising the catalogue in Hindi and make it available to online sales platforms in early 2000s to being at the helm of digital focus during the mega World Book Fair in 2023.
“To represent the literary estates of Manohar Shyam Joshi, Dharmveer Bharti, Nirmal Verma, Surendra Verma, Swadesh Deepak, Uday Prakash, Mahashweta Devi, Narendra Kohli, Yatindra Mishra, Mamta Kalia, Mridula Garg and more is a matter of huge responsibility. One needs to love and respect their literature to represent it”, she specifies.
As a CEO, Aditi Maheshwari’s vision for Vani Prakashan Group remains to bring out the best books across genres and be present where the readers are, in any mode. “It is an incredibly human resource intensive work. Our team is our strength”.
‘Library Systems Need To Be Revitalised’
According to her, Raja Ram Mohan Roy’s library system started in Calcutta has been the world’s most successful library system, which is unfortunately not as active now.
Maheshwari sounds disheartened but hopeful about the role of the Indian government towards publishers. “The readers are not benefitted at all by making books ‘GST free’. The government must understand that due to GST on raw materials the process of book production has gone up by 18-20 per cent. Also, the cost of paper has increased six times in the last four quarters.”
The government has been encouraging towards the homegrown industries, but the private players of the book publishing industry have been facing unfair competition from the publishing agencies of the government of India, whereas the private players are the true flag bearers of diversity in content, Maheshwari underlines.
Aditi Maheshwari refers to the New Education Policy as a welcome watershed moment. She laments that several districts like Ara in Bihar have no proper bookshops or libraries even today and without the government, most powerful organisation of the country, the change will not happen.
