Thread by @shrikanth_krish

Visiting the Strand bookstore in NY is recommended for all those right wing Hindus who may nurse the delusion that they are changing the climate of opinion about India in any meaningful way

Far from it

The discourse on India, as evidenced by the books that sell in the India shelf is predominantly mainstream center-left, with a few radical far-left works

Popular titles include -
Gandhi's Autobio
Ram Guha's histories
Sunil Khilnani
Some 19th cen works like James Tod's history of Rajputs
Sheldon Pollock
Wendy Doniger
Nirad Choudhari
Patrick French

Plus some offbeat names like
Sujatha Gidla

The so-called Indic discourse that gets bragged about in social media has no representation whatsoever.

There is no Arun Shourie, no Rajiv Malhotra, no Sanjeev Sanyal.

And even among older names - I don't find PV Kane, or Jadunath Sarkar or Nilakantha Sastri.

Arundathi Roy is represented very well. But Indian authors like Bhyrappa in translation are unheard of. It would be too zany to even expect to find a title by them

While Strand is not the best example to cite, as it is primarily a used-book store (with some new books as well), the point to make here is -

There is nothing changing on the ground.

The Indian RW'ers form an echo chamber which is fine. But nobody reads you

And I am not just talking about new young authors like say Vikram Sampath or Mr Sanyal.

You don't even find people like Rajaji or KM Munshi - fine sterling writers in every respect - figuring in these stores.

What sells is primarily Gandhi and Nehru

It's time for the "Right wingers" to take a step back from Twitter-rage and think hard -

Are they really reaching out to the world at large?

Are they taking interest in bringing out new publications of old authors like say Mr Nilakantha Sastri or Jadunath Sarkar (who may not be right wing but atleast present a less jaundiced narrative than say the Marxist writers)

The energy doesn't seem to be there.

What the RW is good at is preaching to the choir on twitter and FB.

Elsewhere the India of Gandhi, Nehru and snake charmers remains the dominant narrative that sells

Another example -

Bibek Debroy made waves in Indic circles for undertaking a massive and important translation of both Mahabharata and Ramayana - a collosal effort.

While one finds him in Indian stores, I have never come across Debroy in any NYC store

I find Patrick Olivelle, the Ceylonese writer on Manu Smrti and Upanishads. But not Debroy.

Clearly Indian writers with the odd exception like Guha or Tharoor are missing a trick. Why do these writers find so hard to penetrate the mainstream?

There is a lot to ponder upon here