Books, bureaucracy & beyond

MP: You have made a very smooth transition from the IAS to your second avatar as a writer and scholar. Please share your journey from an administrator to a writer.

SC: Thank you for this question, but let me say: I have always been a writer, and as the old-time readers of this paper may recall, I have been sending my book reviews and columns on governance and agriculture reforms for Millennium Post ever since its inception. In fact, I do not recall any time in my life from my teens when I was not writing regularly. I was a Trainee Journalist with the Times of India, three days before I turned 21, which gave me a good institutional platform to write. Three years later, I joined the IAS, and while in service, I wrote reports, delivered judgments, edited and updated gazetteers, prepared background notes for speeches for Union Ministers, Chief Ministers, governors, and cabinet notes. I kept my journal and wrote my books and academic articles. And I have not completely abandoned administrative tasks—for running a literature festival with eight book awards and five verticals across the country, together with Iti Natya and Iti Nritya, involves very much the same issues—raising resources, preparing budgets, ensuring compliance, and engaging with stakeholders. Yes, the scale has tilted towards research and writing, but I still have many administrative tasks at hand.

MP: As a writer, your books have been very diverse in their range. When you were Secretary of Industries in Uttarakhand, you authored the book ‘Towards Thirty Thousand Crores’ about the growing investment in the new state of Uttarakhand. This was followed by ‘Food for Thought’ and an edited volume on agribusiness. Then you wrote ‘We the People of the States of Bharat: The Making and Remaking of India’s Internal Boundaries’, which is now going into paperback editions and translations. Which new book are you writing now, and why?

SC: Our writings reflect our ‘current obsessions’. While in college, I wrote poetry, and my collection ‘Ecstasy’ was published while I was still in my teens. I did a yearbook for my subdivision in 1989 and a research paper on district administration in 1991. Later at the Academy, I wrote extensively on rural development and cooperatives. As the RD Secretary of Uttarakhand, I wrote ‘Food for Thought’. When I joined as Secretary of Industries, I recorded the challenges and triumphs of attracting investments to the state of Uttarakhand, published as a memoir titled ‘Ten Thousand Crores’. Then I wrote my weekly column ‘AgriMatters’ as Joint Secretary of Agriculture in the Government of India, and later as the ACS Agriculture of West Bengal. During my posting as the Director of LBSNAA, I had a very good interaction with the Survey of India. Based on the maps received from them, I wrote on the reorganization of India’s internal boundaries during my term as Director of LBSNAA. Post my superannuation, I completed a 1,50,000-word biography on Lal Bahadur Shastri. This is likely to be published by Bloomsbury early next year. I wrote this book because I strongly feel that justice has not been done to one of our most decisive prime ministers.

MP: Valley of Words has emerged as a leading arts and literature festival in the country over the last seven years. It will soon be holding its eighth edition. Please share with us what has been lined up at the VoW festival this year.

SC: For this, we have to thank all our readers, especially those who read my weekly column on book reviews. We have all the award-winning authors in the eight categories, besides our verticals on science and technology curated by Rajendra Dobhal and on military history and strategy by Lt Gen PJS Pannu. We have candid conversations on internal migration, demographic changes and security in India's borders, the implications of the UCC in Uttarakhand on the rest of India, the future of offline media, a roundtable of school principals, and a parliamentarians' debate on foreign policy. We have two tribute sessions to pay homage to poet and media person Jaskiran Chopra and philosopher of science Dhirendra Sharma. We have twelve book launches, besides the Mushaira, which as in previous years is organized and sponsored by Dr. S Farooq. We also have a session on Rash Behari Bose by Tarun Vijay and the Salt March of Mahatma Gandhi. Additionally, we have performances by award-winning artists of Iti Nritya and Iti Natya, organized with Yi of CII.

MP: As a curator of one of the most successful literature festivals in the country, you get to read a lot of books. Can you tell me about the quality of writing in recent years?

SC: I must say that the quality of writings—as reflected in the nominations we receive for our Book Awards—is simply superb. It is indeed very difficult to choose the best titles. I can certainly say that in the three categories that I am personally aware of—fiction, non-fiction, and translations from Bhashas of Bharat into English—the standard of the writing, the range of information, and the quality of editing and printing are far better than they were, say, ten years ago. Likewise, the writings for young adults are impressive, for I have read the reviews and seen the enactments at Daly College Indore. The enactments by young children on illustrated books have made me aware that, unlike the fairy tales of charming princes and damsels in distress, we now have stories that help children cope with issues like the aspirations of the girl child, the fallout of patriarchy, terminal illness in the family, issues related to the environment, and, of course, stories that are pure joy and fun.

MP: Valley of Words has regularly promoted varied categories as far as awards are concerned, and it has awards in English fiction and non-fiction, Hindi fiction and non-fiction, and translation categories from Indian languages to English and Hindi. In addition, the festival also awards works for young adults and for children. As such, you have tried to bridge the language and generational gaps as far as literature festivals are concerned. Please share with us, how did this come about in VoW?

SC: The realization that so much of our literature is being written in Hindi and the Bhashas of Bharat has been with me for quite some time. English-language writing in India has many more platforms, and authors and publishers have deep pockets. Hindi and Bhasha publishers—with the exception of Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam—suffer from limited individual sales. To my mind, the prime focus of Hindi and Bhasha publishers on institutional sales has made it comparatively more difficult for individual writers. We have tried to address this gap. For the last several years, we have been holding the Hindi vertical during the Hindi fortnight, and from next year, we will try to take it to schools as well. The NEP is addressing this issue as well, and in our own way, getting the reviews of all books published in Hindi and English opens up many new vistas.

The intergenerational dialogue is, of course, extremely important for us. It is part of our vision statement. We address it by getting students to engage with the texts with a critical and nuanced lens, rather than outright adulation. This is the thinking behind Lead @VoW, in which we have connected the eight premium knowledge institutions of Doon—the Survey of India, the National Hydrographic Office, FRI, WII, SRHU, Dwijen Sen Memorial, the Swami Rama Himalayan University, and the Sakya Academy—with students of schools to undertake research in these institutions, ask probing questions, and look for career pathways in the domains of these institutions.