All major Indian publishers are also representatives/distributors of British or American publishers: there are no purely indigenous Indian publishing houses. The ?mix? is what provides the business, though the proportion of the Indian and foreign component varies from publisher to publisher. The question often asked in publishing houses is whether the mix makes business sense in this age when Indian market conditions have changed and foreign books are beyond the reach of the average Indian buyer. What are the compulsions behind the continuing relationship with the West?

Take the positive side of the relationship. First, it enriches the Indian list by offering books on a variety of subjects. The imported component may be more expensive, affordable only to well-funded libraries, but it offers a choice that is not available in the purely indigenous lists.

Second, it makes possible reprint licenses for a cheaper Indian edition. All Indian publishers have expanded their lists through reprints and not merely by commissioning Indian authors on different subjects. Take Oxford University Press?s ?Teaching of English as a Foreign Language? series, which has a range of dictionaries, readers, abridged classics, grammar and usage texts and reprints of classics with introductions by experts, which are prescribed in Indian universities. Or science, technology and medical lists by McGraw Hill, Wiley and other publishers.

Third, collaboration has led to specially marked down prices for the Indian market of almost all books that are imported in sufficient numbers. Two recent cases. Amartya Sen?s The Argumentative Indian: UK price, ? 25, Indian price, Rs 650; Salman Rushdie?s Shalimar, the Clown: UK price, ? 17.99, Indian price, Rs 595. But there is a downside ? the profit margins on imported books is small. While publishers have extracted specially reduced prices for the Indian market this has not come without a price tag. Western publishers have set down the quantities we must take to qualify for the lower prices we want. For Amartya Sen and Salman Rushdie, the deal must have been struck at least 5,000 copies ? or more. You may say this is chicken-feed for two well-established authors but the market isn?t as buoyant as is often imagined.

But all these aren?t reason enough to do away with the mix for the simple reason that Indian publishers have not been able to throw up a range of quality books to attract the serious reader. Yes, there has been a tremendous expansion of media outlets, and down-market ?guide? books. Also, there has been resurgence of Indian writing in English but it has originated in the West and then been reprinted here. There are many reasons why Indian publishers haven?t been to able to exploit the market potential: resources, but above all, lack of intellectual talent that would knuckle down to the hard, solitary task of writing a book. Money isn?t the only problem; we lack intellectual stamina. And these reasons are not going to go away.