Foregrounding Women's Voices: An Interview with Urvashi Butalia

Urvashi Butalia, co-founder of Kali for Women, India's first feminist publishing house, has now moved on to set up Zubaan Books. In this interview, Butalia reaffirms the need to make women's voices heard.

In this interview, Butalia talks about the difference between feminist publishing and women's published explaining that she defines feminist publishing as having a progressive political agenda and are written about women but not necessarily written by women. She is committed to "reflecting the debates within the women's movement and disseminating them as far as possible".

Butalia looks at feminist publishing as a "developmental activity – for social change, developing certain skills, developing certain strains of thought". She elaborates, "this work which we are able to do in India in a somewhat economically sustainable way, is done in many other countries by NGOs and women's groups which produce a lot of material. They are not skilled in marketing, so their work does not reach out very far. Here too in India we do see a lot of material produced by women's groups. My take on feminist publishing is that it doesn't begin out of commercially setting up a publishing house that has feminist ideals. It actually exists in a much wider form within the women's movement. But if there is an institution like ours, if it is successful and sustainable, has skills, and establishes standards, we can address this need with a centrality that women's groups cannot easily do. We know the market, we know the business, and have taught ourselves to combine business with politics. We don't reject either, while women's groups would like to reject the business side of it! In that sense, we have an advantage – and do in a different way what women's groups are doing. But when I speak of it as a developmental enterprise, it is because it is committed to social change."

In her new position at Zubaan, Butalia will continue to publish books about women but also will produce books for young people – children, and young women. Zubaan intends "to publish books about women that will be read not only by committed academics and activists, but by a general reader". They will also publish in Hindi. "We are also trying to make the publications more accessible in their language and visual appeal – more pictorial and more fun. We also want to bring out post-literacy material for women. At Kali, we had intended to train women in publishing skills, but never got around to doing it. At Zubaan, we aim to take this work forward. We are planning our first workshop now."

Click here for the full interview online.