Bhatkal and Sen
Encyclopedia
Bhatkal & Sen is a publishing partnership between Mandira Sen and Popular Prakashan
. The company is based in Calcutta and publishes the imprints Stree and Samya. It is noted for publishing authors such as Kancha Ilaiah
, Om Prakash Valmiki
, Tirumaavalavan, Gail Omvedt
, Manikuntala Sen
, Ashok Mitra
, V. Geetha, and Bani Basu
, and has prominent scholars such as Susie Tharu and Maithreyi Krishnaraj as editors. It publishes academic works in the social sciences, memoirs and classic fiction in translation in English and Bengali.
Popular Prakashan is a Bombay-based publishing firm established in 1920 by Ganesh R. Bhatkal, a former employee of OUP
Bombay.
. Some books were also published in Hindi
, Bengali
, Punjabi
, Urdu
and Gujarati
. The books were intended for export to help the children of non-resident Indians to learn their mother-tongues. Distribution was a major problem, and in 1986 Mandira Sen met Ramdas Bhatkal of Popular Prakashan
at an international book fair. Bhatkal and Sen was set up in 1990, creating a new imprint "Stree" which publishes books dealing with women's issues and social sciences.
activists and she wished to use this experience to highlight the work that was being done concerning women's issues in India; and to help educate people about the movement and its contributions to civil society. Stree's early titles fell into the following categories:
Stree's first title was a translation of a Gujarati novel by S. J. Joshi, Anandi Gopal, a fictional retelling of the life of the first Indian woman to qualify as a doctor. Many titles followed, including Women as Subjects: South Asian Histories edited by Nita Kumar (ISBN 81-85604-03-7), The Struggle Against Violence edited by Chhaya Datar (ISBN 81-85604-01-1), and other works.
women in the nineteenth century. There was also Pinjore Boshiya (Inside the Cage), a collection of essays by Kalyani Dutta, edited by the School of Women's Studies at Jadavpur University
. The third title was a translation of Kamla Bhasin's What is Patriarchy? into Bengali.
The year 1996 also saw the inception of the Samya imprint. The occasion for this was the publication of Kancha Ilaiah's Why I Am Not a Hindu: A Sudra Critique of Hindutva Philosophy, Culture and Political Economy. Ilaiah had been turned away by a number of publishers who felt his work was too controversial; Sen felt his critique of the caste system fitted in with Stree's parallel critique of patriarchy and gender, and began the Samya imprint (meaning 'equality' or 'fairness') in 1996 with his book. Since then Samya has published Om Prakash Valmiki's Joothan, an account of a Dalit's growing up under caste oppression, and Tirumaalvalavan's Talisman: Extreme Emotions of Dalit Awakening, translated by Meena Kandasamy.
's Nabankur (The Seedling's Tale) and Bani Basu
's The Birth of the Maitreya (Maitreyo Jatak). Marathi works translated into English include Kamal Desai's Dark Sun and The Woman Who Wore a Hat, Saroj Pathak's Whom Can I Tell? How Can I Explain? and Vibhavari Shirurkar
's Kharemaster. Many of these books form part of the Gender Culture Politics series, edited by Susie Tharu.
Stree has helped to bring to a wider audience many forgotten memoirs by early women writers such as Lalithambika Antherjanam
's Cast Me Out If You Will which documents Namboodiri oppression of Nair
women in nineteenth century Kerala
. In this category falls Manikuntala Sen's In Search of Freedom: An Unfinished Journey, a translation of her Shediner Kotha which traces the early years of the Communist movement in India.
Popular Prakashan
-History:In 1924, founder Ganesh R. Bhatkal, a former employee of OUP India, established the Popular Book Depot as an independent bookseller. In 1962, his successors Sadanand G. Bhatkal and Ramdas G. Bhatkal created Popular Prakashan Pvt. Ltd. as a publishing company.-Cookery:Popular Prakashan...
. The company is based in Calcutta and publishes the imprints Stree and Samya. It is noted for publishing authors such as Kancha Ilaiah
Kancha Ilaiah
Kancha Ilaiah is an Indian activist and writer. His books include Why I am not a Hindu, God As Political Philosopher: Budha's challenge to Brahminism, A Hollow Shell, The State and Repressive Culture, Manatatwam , and Buffalo Nationalism: A Critique of Spiritual Fascism.- Bibliography :*Why I Am...
, Om Prakash Valmiki
Om Prakash Valmiki
Om Prakash Valmiki is a Dalit writer and poet. His autobiography, Joothan, is a well known work in Dalit literature.-References:...
, Tirumaavalavan, Gail Omvedt
Gail Omvedt
Dr. Gail Omvedt is an American born Indian scholar, sociologist and human rights activist. Omvedt has been involved in Dalit and anti-caste movements, environmental, farmers' and women's movements.-Biography:...
, Manikuntala Sen
Manikuntala Sen
Manikuntala Sen was one of the first women to be active in the Communist Party of India. She is best known for her Bengali-language memoir Shediner Kotha , in which she describes her experiences as a woman activist during some of the most turbulent times in India's history.-Early life:Manikuntala...
, Ashok Mitra
Ashok Mitra
-Early life and Education:After completing his graduation from the University of Dacca, he came to India following the partition of India in 1947. Although he attended postgraduate classes in economics at the University of Calcutta, he was refused admission there. He moved to Banaras Hindu...
, V. Geetha, and Bani Basu
Bani Basu
Bani Basu is a Bengali Indian author, essayist, critic and poet. She was educated at the well-known Scottish Church College and at the University of Calcutta....
, and has prominent scholars such as Susie Tharu and Maithreyi Krishnaraj as editors. It publishes academic works in the social sciences, memoirs and classic fiction in translation in English and Bengali.
Popular Prakashan is a Bombay-based publishing firm established in 1920 by Ganesh R. Bhatkal, a former employee of OUP
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
Bombay.
Beginnings of Stree
Mandira Sen worked as a publisher's editor for Houghton Mifflin among others in the US, until she returned to India in 1978. She worked for a year for Orient Longman, then set up Mandira, which published bilingual children's books; with English text on the verso pages and the same text in an Indian language on the rectoRecto
The recto and verso are respectively the "front" and "back" sides of a leaf of paper in a bound item such as a codex, book, broadsheet, or pamphlet. In languages written from left to right the recto is the right-hand page and the verso the left-hand page...
. Some books were also published in Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
, Bengali
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
, Punjabi
Punjabi language
Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by inhabitants of the historical Punjab region . For Sikhs, the Punjabi language stands as the official language in which all ceremonies take place. In Pakistan, Punjabi is the most widely spoken language...
, Urdu
Urdu
Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...
and Gujarati
Gujarati language
Gujarati is an Indo-Aryan language, and part of the greater Indo-European language family. It is derived from a language called Old Gujarati which is the ancestor language of the modern Gujarati and Rajasthani languages...
. The books were intended for export to help the children of non-resident Indians to learn their mother-tongues. Distribution was a major problem, and in 1986 Mandira Sen met Ramdas Bhatkal of Popular Prakashan
Popular Prakashan
-History:In 1924, founder Ganesh R. Bhatkal, a former employee of OUP India, established the Popular Book Depot as an independent bookseller. In 1962, his successors Sadanand G. Bhatkal and Ramdas G. Bhatkal created Popular Prakashan Pvt. Ltd. as a publishing company.-Cookery:Popular Prakashan...
at an international book fair. Bhatkal and Sen was set up in 1990, creating a new imprint "Stree" which publishes books dealing with women's issues and social sciences.
The early years
During her time in the US, Mandira Sen had come into contact with many women's rightsWomen's rights
Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...
activists and she wished to use this experience to highlight the work that was being done concerning women's issues in India; and to help educate people about the movement and its contributions to civil society. Stree's early titles fell into the following categories:
- Scholarly translations of important texts in Indian languages by or about women that deserved to reach a wider audience.
- Works of scholarship in the social sciences with an Indian context or sources, or by Indian scholars, with special reference to women, and
- Popular works dealing with concepts and ideas of the women's movement with the objective of introducing them to Indian audiences.
Stree's first title was a translation of a Gujarati novel by S. J. Joshi, Anandi Gopal, a fictional retelling of the life of the first Indian woman to qualify as a doctor. Many titles followed, including Women as Subjects: South Asian Histories edited by Nita Kumar (ISBN 81-85604-03-7), The Struggle Against Violence edited by Chhaya Datar (ISBN 81-85604-01-1), and other works.
The Bengali List, and Samya
In 1996, the singer-songwriter Moushumi Bhowmik came to Stree as an editor. She began and developed Stree's Bengali lists, which included works such as Sambuddha Chakrabarti's Andare Antare (Inside, Within), on the lives of Bengali bhadralokBhadralok
Bhadralok is a Bengali term used to denote the new class of 'gentlefolk' who arose during colonial times in Bengal. It is still used to indicate members of the upper middle and middle classes of Bengal.-Caste and Class makeup:...
women in the nineteenth century. There was also Pinjore Boshiya (Inside the Cage), a collection of essays by Kalyani Dutta, edited by the School of Women's Studies at Jadavpur University
Jadavpur University
Jadavpur University , is a premier educational and research institution in India.It is located in Kolkata, West Bengal and comprises two campuses - the main campus at Jadavpur and the new campus at Salt Lake...
. The third title was a translation of Kamla Bhasin's What is Patriarchy? into Bengali.
The year 1996 also saw the inception of the Samya imprint. The occasion for this was the publication of Kancha Ilaiah's Why I Am Not a Hindu: A Sudra Critique of Hindutva Philosophy, Culture and Political Economy. Ilaiah had been turned away by a number of publishers who felt his work was too controversial; Sen felt his critique of the caste system fitted in with Stree's parallel critique of patriarchy and gender, and began the Samya imprint (meaning 'equality' or 'fairness') in 1996 with his book. Since then Samya has published Om Prakash Valmiki's Joothan, an account of a Dalit's growing up under caste oppression, and Tirumaalvalavan's Talisman: Extreme Emotions of Dalit Awakening, translated by Meena Kandasamy.
Literary Translations
Stree also publishes an extensive list of works in translation by women writers past and present. These include Sulekha SanyalSulekha Sanyal
-Biography:She grew up in Korokdi, now in Faridpur Bangladesh, in a decaying zamindar family that had once been indigo planters, and was to become a member of the Communist Party of India. An early influence on her was the Brahmo philosopher and reformer, Ramtanu Lahiri, who was related to her mother...
's Nabankur (The Seedling's Tale) and Bani Basu
Bani Basu
Bani Basu is a Bengali Indian author, essayist, critic and poet. She was educated at the well-known Scottish Church College and at the University of Calcutta....
's The Birth of the Maitreya (Maitreyo Jatak). Marathi works translated into English include Kamal Desai's Dark Sun and The Woman Who Wore a Hat, Saroj Pathak's Whom Can I Tell? How Can I Explain? and Vibhavari Shirurkar
Malti Bedekar
Malati Vishram Bedekar Vibhavari Shirurkar Malati Vishram Bedekar (Devanagari: मालती विश्राम बेडेकर) Vibhavari Shirurkar Malati Vishram Bedekar (Devanagari: मालती विश्राम बेडेकर) Vibhavari Shirurkar ( (Devanagari: विभावरी शिरूरकर). (March 18, 1905 – May 7, 2001) was a Marathi writer from...
's Kharemaster. Many of these books form part of the Gender Culture Politics series, edited by Susie Tharu.
Stree has helped to bring to a wider audience many forgotten memoirs by early women writers such as Lalithambika Antherjanam
Lalithambika Antherjanam
Lalithambika Antharjanam was a Namboodiri woman who wrote stories and a personal memoir about the oppression of women by her community.-Biography:...
's Cast Me Out If You Will which documents Namboodiri oppression of Nair
Nair
Nair , also known as Nayar , refers to "not a unitary group but a named category of castes", which historically embody several castes and many subdivisions, not all of whom bore the Nair title. These people historically live in the present-day Indian state of Kerala...
women in nineteenth century Kerala
Kerala
or Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....
. In this category falls Manikuntala Sen's In Search of Freedom: An Unfinished Journey, a translation of her Shediner Kotha which traces the early years of the Communist movement in India.