Writers, Readers, Publishers (1/n). My satirical tweet launching a ‘Bhindic’ publishing house called ‘Befitting Reply’ got 300 Likes, with many taking it seriously. My tweet of this beautiful tribute video to a brilliant young writer #OGSaffron got 30.

2/n: Why? Do we fail to read tweets before reacting? Or do we react to words we are primed to jump on like ‘befitting reply’ and ‘tight slap to left liberals’? And what does this absence of click throughs & RTs for a tribute to a writer we all loved on Twitter say about us?

3/n: the video took several hours of editing and work by Sri @raghucdp and others. Many of us do things we think are of use to dharma as seva on social media but we often don’t realize the labor that goes into things like art, video and especially writing.

4/n: since writers and publishers are in the news here is something that Twitter might want to think more about. How many Hindu writers do you know who do this full time ? In contrast, how many ‘Left Liberal’ writers are supported - by grants, corporates & of course readers?

5/n: I know the excuses: ‘they ruled for decades we are just starting’ etc. I have heard this for over 5 years now. I have to tell you this is a total cop out at every level. A serious community concerned about survival would not be this tuned out from reality.

6/n: The reality is that Hindus get outplayed in the field of communication every day because of lack of knowledge about media, publishing etc and blind adulation for business and political leaders over the labor and vision of writers, scholars, artists.

7/n: One small example. See this ad on the Left from the 70s for how the Left treats its writers. By contrast, see the ad which we all know now on the Right. No titles or introduction to the authors. Prominence to politicians. Backlash inevitable (even if it proved useful now).

8/n: Now Bloomsbury and the instigators went overboard and have egg on the face (thanks also to the authors who marched out in solidarity). But in the long term whose story will prevail in memory, in your children’s memory? The story that bubbles in social media or in books?

9/n: I applaud the effort by @sankrant and his @GarudaPrakashan to rise to the moment. But publishing is not just about going to print a book at the press. And publishing against the diktats of the global MNC giants who inherit colonial era old markets, resources & privilege !

10/n: Publishing is a rich cultural practice involving writers , publishing professionals (editors, designers, artists, marketers etc) AND engaged and enlightened readers who know what’s at stake for everyone with those books.

Get a sense of how it works. This is a great study. Note the importance of something called ‘symbolic capital’ in picture 2. It’s what big names like Penguin, Bloomsbury etc have - and also sadly hide behind sometimes to sell liars & racist mediocrities to us.

12/n: Now symbolic capital / prestige etc is often just snobbery used to shut out dissent (like @sanjeevsanyal wrote recently). But it’s also for those of us in the professional writing community a way to value & encourage each other. Rarely about the money.

13/n: $$$ - authors typically get less than 10% of what readers pay for a book as royalties (Many readers and SM consumers who blindly pirate books and share PDFs don’t seem to ever think of that). So in a sense what we are driving towards as authors is not just money but also..

14/n: .. our share of the symbolic capital that comes with mainstream publishing (and of course the talent and teamwork- I have had great editors, cover designers at @PenguinIndia and @WestlandBooks ) . One story of how this helps fight for truth ..

15/n: during the CA history curriculum mess in 2016 the S Asia orthodoxy tried smearing Saraswati river points from our side as fringe ‘belief’ etc. All we had to do was to point out who the publisher of this ‘fringe theory’ book was. Prof Danino & Penguin.

16/n: Publishing is a huge world and a prize worth fighting for on every front. Several centuries older than TV, SM and staying power and prestige embedded. Smash down the snobbery and racism. Capture the talent and goodwill already out there and build up anew too. But know how-

17/n: Step 1: know the limits of social media. It’s ephemeral, and in the Hindu case highly unstrategic too. Good for noise at best but no match for all that publishing brings. So if you use SM please do so wisely. As more than a vanity or outlet for anger.

18/n: Books take years to write. Writers take years of work and struggle to be born. If you think reading is hard think of what writers do, especially writers who go up against monsters of racial and religious privilege in the mainstream ...

19/n: SM for Hindus is warped towards party politics. That’s fine. But don’t mistake this for the real fight out there in the cultural front. Party politics have already messed it up big. VOI, Gita Press etc should be flying after 2014 . Instead ..

20/n: We had the fiasco of PM Modiji going to give an award to a writer of a book smearing the Gita Press (and being snubbed in turn). The political class at the moment is not a friend of the creative or scholarly side of Hindu survival..

21/n: I sincerely hope the revolt of the writers will prevail and the systematic silencing of Hindu pain from Aurangzeb to Delhi 2020 will be smashed once and for all - in the mainstream and in full view of the future. If you wish to take writing more seriously I do have an ebook

22/22: Writing Across a Cracked World - if you think it makes sense to write in a way that reaches people outside your SM bubbles , like your own kids going to mainstream schools for eg, please buy it and learn from it https://www.amazon.in/Writing-Across-Cracked-World-Representation-ebook/dp/B07GLZ93NR/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=juluri+writing&qid=1598241661&sr=8-1