India falls under Harry Potter's spell

By Nyay Bhushan
BBC correspondent in Delhi

The latest Harry Potter book Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J K Rowling has set a publishing record in India.

The latest book has sold more in two weeks than the others have in a few years

The book's Indian distributors, Penguin India, sold about 120,000 copies within its first two weeks of release.

"Harry Potter has certainly created magic. No other book in India has ever registered these kind of sales," says PM Sukumar, vice president, sales and marketing at Penguin India.

He adds that the first four editions of J K Rowling's best-selling series clocked about 100,000 copies each over the past couple of years, while the new edition, priced at about Rupees 800 (£10), has already overtaken this figure.

Sales of the other books, however, were affected by as much as 20% by pirated versions, Mr Sukumar says.

Urban appeal

Although there have been reports of pirated versions of The Order of the Phoenix having surfaced in Pakistan, Penguin India and Harry Potter's international publishers, Bloomsbury, have already hired a copyright lawyer to try to clampdown on bootlegged books.

Some observers, however, are not enamoured with the Harry Potter phenomenon. Alaka Shankar, project coordinator at India's oldest children's publishing house Children's Book Trust, argues that Harry Potter only reaches out to children in urban India.

Children don't spend as much time with their grandparents or other relatives, who used to be a great source of stories, that's why they are attracted to Harry Potter Alaka Shankar, Children's Book Trust

"We have published about 1,400 titles in ten languages and we don't consider Harry Potter any competition," she says. It's ironic that sometimes, the West criticises India for its magic and witchcraft. But what is Harry Potter? It also talks about the same magical things."

Ms Shankar adds that much of the Harry Potter appeal is down to the media hype. "Out of ten children who buy the book, perhaps only two actually read it. I also blame the parents for getting carried away with the hype."

Ms Shankar thinks that many urban children are missing out on India's own rich tradition of folk tales and mythology because of the way in which family life is changing.

Making an impact

"Children don't spend as much time with their grandparents or other relatives, who used to be a great source of stories. That's why they are attracted to Harry Potter and, of course, the television."

Naveen Menon, editor of India's oldest children's magazine Children's World thinks Harry Potter is a wake-up call for Indian publishing.

"It has taught us that we should take a fresh approach to packaging our own stories and children's books. We need to attract today's kids and, especially, their parents. We have our own great authors, such as R K Laxman who wrote the popular Malgudi Days."

But Penguin's Mr Sukumar thinks that Harry Potter's success is not at the cost of Indian authors losing their audience.

"More than a decade ago, nobody thought that Indian authors writing in English would make the kind of global impact that we've seen Vikram Seth and Arundhati Roy make. Similarly, in the next 15-20 years, I am sure Indian authors of children's books will make an impact as well."