EDITRIX EXTRAORDINAIRE: (From top) Esha Beteille, Arpita Das, Urvashi Butalia and Indu Chandrashekhar

Chilled wine and chicken satay circulated freely at the party held at The Park in Delhi last fortnight. The occasion was the formal launch of a platform that celebrated the rise of women in publishing.

The forum — called Women in Publishing, India — is the India chapter of an organisation that was started in the UK 30 years ago. The India launch reflects the rising number of women in decision-making editorial positions in the country. “It is a good thing to happen,” says publisher Esha Beteille, who started the Social Science Press in 1997. “Women help each other professionally.”

The forum’s launch mirrors the churning in the publishing industry. Several foreign publishing houses have entered the growing Indian market, and they’re accustomed to women in top jobs.

Today, more women occupy decision-making positions in the Indian publishing industry — and they’re commissioning books in a spectrum of new areas — from homoeroticism to the lives of ordinary people. The Delhi-based Zubaan, for example, is in the process of publishing an autobiography of a Kerala policewoman. Women editors have encouraged translations — in July, Women Unlimited published a translation of Jnanpith-winning Urdu novelist Qurratulain Hyder’s novel Fireflies in the Mist. And the large publishing houses where women are at the editorial helm are changing the character of mass market publishing with newer kind of lifestyle books on a wide range of subjects.

Many women publishers run independent units. Others, such as V.K. Karthika (HarperCollins India) and Chiki Sarkar (Random House India), head the editorial function at large publishing houses — unimaginable even a decade ago. “Women have noticeably outnumbered men in publishing in the last 10 years,” says Amit Agarwal, managing editor of HarperCollins, India. Kapish Mehra, publisher, Rupa, believes it is a “natural” progression. “There has always been a greater ratio of women performing editorial functions.”

True. But in the past they rarely got to make the key decisions. Most independent women publishers mention how constricted they felt in their slots in large publishing houses. “Men controlled the levers of power and women had less visibility,” says Ritu Menon, who started Women Unlimited in 2003.

The advent of independent women publishers, many believe, has made a visible difference. “It is the independent women publishers who are breaking the rules — it’s they who are more experimental and risk-taking,” says Menon.

Most of the women who went on to start their independent publishing imprints had been editors in large publishing houses. Urvashi Butalia, who formed Zubaan in 2003, was at Oxford University Press (OUP) which she left to co-found Kali for Women with Menon in 1984. Publisher Arpita Das left OUP to set up Yoda Press in 2005.

Many of them sought the change because they wanted to produce different kinds of books. Butalia and Menon focused on feminist literature. They were followed by Mandira Sen, who started Stree in Calcutta after leaving Orient Longman. Indu Chandrashekhar, who had worked in Macmillan, founded Tulika in 1995. Her trigger for starting her own imprint was her wish to bring out books that would have a political content along with production quality. Besides a solid history list, Tulika has published some excellent art titles.

As for Das, soon after launching Yoda Press, she set about giving it a distinctive character. Her series called Sexuality — with some outstanding titles on homoeroticism — made such an impact that big publishers have now been pursuing her series editor, Gautam Bhan. The latest in the series is Wish You Were Here: Memories of a Gay Life by photographer Sunil Gupta, who is HIV positive and a prominent gay activist.

Many women pubishers have also done pioneering work in translations. Zubaan is about to bring out Salma’s Midnight Tales — which has been picked up in the long list of the Man Asia Literary Prize. Salma is the pen name of a Muslim woman who broke away from conservative religious constraints in her parental and marital homes and who has now emerged as a poet, writer and politician.

That’s not all. Gita Dharmarajan of Katha has been focusing on translations of regional literature, and Chandra Chari and Uma Iyengar, who are now running The Book Review, a periodical devoted to reviews, have extended it as an imprint by developing a list of translations.

Many in the industry feel that independent women publishers have made a difference to the sector. For instance, gender and environment began to be actively considered by the large publishing houses after the impact made by Kali for Women and Stree. According to Chandrashekhar, the care they lavish on production quality has also had a spin-off on mainstream publishers.

Karthika, publisher and editor-in-chief of HarperCollins, India, argues that the benchmark of improved production quality comes more from the West than the standards set by the independent publishers. But she says that independent women publishers have certainly made a visible impact in nurturing a special author-publisher relationship: “Books are not merely a commercial product for them, but an idea which they develop in active partnership with the author. Often, a lasting relationship with the author grows in the process.”

What makes women turn to publishing? Chiki Sarkar, editor-in-chief of Random House, India, believes that fewer men join the profession because it is considered a poorly paid industry. “See the ratio of women to men in the humanities courses. I would like to hire bright young male editors but they seem to be in short supply,” she says.

Renuka Chatterjee, senior vice-president, Osian’s Literary Agency, agrees. “Even in the Nineties, salaries were very low. Besides, the nature of work in the editorial functions deters men. There is a lot of drudgery before the book appears. Women seem to have the patience for it,” she says. Of course, salary structures have now changed after the entry of large foreign publishers, but they still are nowhere near those in some other media streams.

But others point out that though women are riding high as editors, few of them exist in the business side of book publishing. Says Thomas Abraham, managing director of Hatchette, one of the largest trade publishers in the UK which recently entered India, “It is true that women have a larger presence in editorial functions, but is there a woman managing director in the larger publishing houses?” Pointing out that there are fewer women in the business side in mainstream publishing, Abraham says that Hatchette has begun appointing women in top management positions.

Sunanda Ghosh, senior vice president, sales and marketing, Sage, believes women are comfortable in marketing but not in sales. “The salesperson has to travel through the rough terrains of small towns and remote areas. The boarding and lodging, as well as transport facilities, are often inadequate. And they have to deal with distribution and retail networks largely dominated by men,” says Ghosh, who has been handling marketing for several years now.

But she sees signs of change. More women are dealing with marketing and even finance. Abraham adds that women are ready to join sales.

While no mythologies have been built up around women publishers and editors in India as they have in the West (Sylvia Beach, an American editor who published James Joyce, among others, is just one instance), women in Indian publishing industry are clearly in the pink of health.