Amazon now pitted against writers and Kannada groups

BENGALURU: Amazon's apparent reluctance to allow Kannada e-books on its Kindle platform has angered sections of writers and Kannada groups pitting the Kannada Development Authority, a statutory body, and Kannada Sahitya Parishat, the apex literary body, against the Seattle-based ecommerce behemoth.
The two organisations are gathering details to decide on its next move to get Amazon to respond to the request of writers to introduce Kannada e-books on Kindle.

The spat is showing signs of gain ing momentum in the coming days as Amazon India, headquartered out of Bengaluru, is said to be planning to offer books in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi, Malayalam and Gujarati on its e-reader.

While the Kannada Development Authority has written a letter to Amazon, the Sahitya Parishat is consulting experts to guide it in the matter. “We have written to Amazon requesting it to treat Kannada in the same way as it wishes to treat other Indian languages. We have also asked them to explain why they want to exclude Kannada from Kindle,“ Hanumanthaiah, the Authority Chairman told ET. “We will decide our future course of action after receiving Amazon's reply,“ he added.

The row was sparked after Amazon apparently took off Kannada writer Vasudhendhra's book from Kindle.“I am consulting a team of tech experts to understand the finer aspects of the issue. We are drafting a letter to Amazon in consultation with tech experts,“ Sahitya Parishat president Manu Baligar said. The Parishat, he said, is pursuing the larger goal of popularising the Kannada literature through all forms of tech media, and a team of experts are working on this.

Amazon did not respond to a mail seeking its comments on Sunday.

Some writers led by Beluru Sudharshana have launched an online petition urging IT Minister Ravishankar Prasad to make it mandatory for all IT hardware makers to embed Indian language scripts, fonts and keyboards in all their tools. “This week, a leading Kannada author published an ebook in Kannada, and tried to sell it through Kindle... Unfortunately, Amazon India did not support Kannada in its Kindle tool,“ the petition said, and added, “This is one of the several examples where IT tools that are being sold in India are not Indian Language enabled.“

Writer Jogi, however, took a contrarian view of the whole episode. Kannada writers, he said, should not see Kindle not supporting Kannada as an affront to the language. “Kannada has survived centuries without Kindle, and has some of the towering literary works and eight Jnanapeeth awards. We already have other e-book readers, so we can continue to do without Kindle.“

MS Sriram, a writer and visiting faculty at IIM-B, who has signed the online petition, said their demand is not about Kindle, but to have a technology that is open to all.