Some multinational publishing houses have announced their plans to enter the regional languages? markets in India. Macmillan had made forays into the Hindi market in the Seventies with originals and translations of well-established social science and humanities textbooks, but wound up by the early Eighties. Pure Hindi language publishers, who have also done translations, are languishing, or at least are poor cousins of English language publishers. Much the same can be said about other regional language publishers with the possible exceptions of Bengali and Malayalam, with Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada may not too far behind.

Hence, the question: Will the new initiative work now? What are the forces in favour of translations and what, if any, are the pitfalls for English language publishers as they move into unfamiliar terrain? Multinationals have the resources, but are those enough to see them through in the long run?

First, the case for regional-language publishing. The market is huge. Not just in the Hindi belt, but also in all the regional languages, any one of which is at least thrice as large as the English segment. It is also a fact that in our multi-lingual, multi-cultural society, no publisher is worth the name if he doesn?t also publish in regional languages.

But there?s a flip side. Regional-language publishing markets, trade and educational, are very distinct, very different, from the English language market, and on the whole unprofitable. There are three possible reasons for this state of affairs. First, the wrong kind of books have been published; second, the prices were too high (unlike English books, regional ones are price sensitive) and the trade terms, like discounts, and other facilities were not attractive enough; and third, marketing was not aggressive enough in the absence of a network of retail outlets. But these constraints could apply as much to English language publishers as they do to Hindi and regional language publishers as well.

So, there must be deeper reasons for the malaise. They are (not necessarily in that order): First, there is more money with the English-knowing elite and hence more retail outlets for them. Almost all the higher education grants are utilized by English books, though of course, a provision is made for Hindi/regional language books. But, sadly, there are not enough books in the regional languages to utilize the grants.

Second, the book trade in the regional languages functions more like a barter economy, following a ?you take two of mine, and I?ll take two of yours? policy. If it didn?t, bookshops could carry a healthier mix of English and regional language books.

Third, the growing belief that without a working knowledge of English there are few job prospects makes the middle class invest more in English books.

Does this mean there is no future in regional language literatures? Not exactly, but there must be a mix of both English and regional literatures, with English paying for the other half for a long time to come. Some believe that if there has been a phenomenal growth of the vernacular press, the same would go for books as well. Only up to a point because books and newspapers or magazines require different approaches to the market.

Numbers matter, but far more important is the critical mass that sets off a chain reaction. If such a critical mass exists in the regional literatures, it hasn?t asserted itself so far. And from the shape of things, it will still be a long time coming.