Sen vs Bhagwati: Their other battle has a clear winner

New Delhi: While there may never be a clear winner in the economic policy debate between bigwigs Amartya Sen and Jagdish Bhagwati, there is only one clear winner in the publishing space.

add_main_imageJust as a cover doesn’t indicate the true worth of a book, sales figures are not necessarily the best indices of an author’s merit. But the contrast in the sales histories of books written by Sen and Bhagwati is staggering.

Obviously, it helps that Sen is a Nobel Laureate and Bhagwati, though a member of the top economists club along with Sen and Avinash Dixit, is relatively less known to the Indian reader.NextMAds

Since Sen’s An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions, co-authored with development economist Jean Drèze, appeared less than a week ago, Penguin Books India (its Indian publisher, now part of the recently merged Penguin Random House) has sent out 25,000 copies into the market. And already there are reorders.

“It’s a bestseller on Flipkart,” said Ananth Padmanabhan, vice-president, sales. “The volume of sales has increased tenfold since the launch, and after the Sen-Bhagwati controversy began.”

According to Flipkart, the book is selling about 150 copies each day since the brouhaha started, a significantly higher number than the initial figures. Amazon India says Sen’s book has been on top of the bestseller list (as of 7pm, on Thursday, as the list is updated hourly), ahead of mass-market authors like Amish Tripathi, Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling’s pseudonym), and Ravinder Singh.

The response has been encouraging in other trade channels as well.

Kinjal Shah, COO of Crossword bookstores, said about 45 copies of the book are selling every day in their outlets across India. “There has been a surge in demand in the last three days. At least a 50% increase over the figures we started with,” he said.

Things do not look as promising for Bhagwati’s recent book (co-authored with Arvind Panagariya), though it was at No. 18 on the Amazon bestseller list at 7pm on Thursday.sixthMAds

India’s Tryst With Destiny: Debunking Myths that Undermine Progress and Addressing New Challenges, published in late 2012 by HarperCollins India, has sold about 5,000 copies so far, according to Sameer Mahale, sales head at the company.

The book is currently out of stock on Flipkart but is in demand, according to the online store, and will soon be available again, though Crossword said Bhagwati’s book did not rise up the demand ladder as much as Sen’s.

Independent bookstores like Bahrisons in New Delhi’s Khan Market are reluctant to give out figures until three weeks are over, but Anuj Bahri, of the famous bookshop, did say that the interest in Sen’s new book doubled since the economist said he wouldn’t want Narendra Modi as his prime minister. Although based in the US, Sen has retained his Indian passport.

Sen’s work entered the mainstream with the publication of The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity in 2005. According to Padmanabhan, the title sold 25,000 in hardback and 155,000 in paperback. “Even Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (2006), which is a more niche title, and The Idea of Justice (2009), another relatively difficult work, have sold over 25,000 copies,” he said.

“One of the reasons for the continuing popularity of some of Sen’s books is that they are eminently accessible,” said Udayan Mitra, publisher of the Allen Lane imprint in India, which has published An Uncertain Glory. “The new book is stronger because it has tables and charts, put together by Drèze, which help simplify complicated arguments.” Mitra hopes the book will sell some 40,000-50,000 copies in hardback.

Bhagwati’s book, in contrast, was pitched mostly to an academic readership, in universities and libraries, though sold through trade, says Mahale.

It is also a more heavy-duty book as far as its approach is concerned. But since the storm in the media, there have been some reorders, according to Mahale.

Amazon India has also noticed a trend in customers buying both the Sen and Bhagwati books together.