Mangesh Narayanrao Kale is a Marathi poet and the editor of an acclaimed literary journal, Khel. This grant will enable Mangesh to map the little magazine movement in Maharashtra from 1881 to the present. The 130 years of the little magazine movement in Maharashtra will be roughly divided into four phases: a) Early period: 1881 to 1950; b) Post-independence period also known as the Satyakatha period: 1950 to 1970; e) Anti—establishment little magazine movement that received an impetus from the Dalit movement and rejected the Satyakatha period: 1960 to 1975; d) Post globalisation: 1990 to the present.

The first part of the study will examine in detail the Marathi literary periodicals from 1881 to 1950. It was during this time that the first literary periodical Kavyaramavali was published, which remained influential for 50 years. Other important periodicals like Khandeshvaibhav and Prabhodhchandrika were also published during this period. The second part will cover literary periodicals that were produced between 1950 and 1970. During this time a magazine called Satyakatha gained popularity and set the standard for other magazines, such as Anushtubh and Kavitarati. Due to the influence that Satyakatha exerted, this period came to be known as the Satyakatha era. By the 1960s, however, Satyakatha’s rigidity and increasing pro-establishment ideology were being questioned. As a symbolic protest, copies of Satyakatha were burned by progressive writers.

Unlike in the Satyakatha period, the 1960s and 1970s witnessed radical literary innovation taking place through the little magazines This will form the third part of the study. This was also the time when the Dalit movement gained momentum and its pioneers like Namdeo Dhasal and Raja Dhale became leaders of the little magazine movement as well. This was a time when writers were experimenting with language and creating new idioms through magazines like Shabda. This period denotes the zenith of the little magazine movement in Maharashtra. The fourth and final part of Mangesh‘s study will investigate how magazines like Shabdavedh, Abhida, Darshan, Khel, and lvaji reveal the impact of globalisation, and the advent of 24-hour news channels, cellular technology, and the Internet on the little magazine movement in the 1990s, particularly on writing styles, themes and readers. 

Mangesh’s research and analysis will be chronicled in a book on the history and evolution of the little magazine movement in Maharashtra. Apart from the introduction, the book will have four parts, each corresponding to the sections mentioned above. Each part will be further divided into several chapters that will address questions such as the changing nature of language, consumption patterns of readers, how social, political and cultural changes in society were reflected in and influenced the little magazines. The book will delineate the role of women writers, publishers, funders and critics and some of the chapters will be dedicated to key magazines of the time. The correlation between little magazines and other art forms like painting, cinema and theatre will be explored in the book. The book will also include photographs of founding-editors, seminal writers, and reproductions of covers of ‘special issues’ of certain magazines.

Mangesh will travel extensively to district libraries and archives across Maharashtra as these magazines were published in various places in the state. In addition to collecting copies of the magazines, he will gather previously published interviews with deceased editors and writers and formerly recorded material on little magazines. He will interview editors, writers and poets who contributed to little magazines at various points in their history. He will then classify the material according to the time periods. On completion of the classification, Mangesh will begin writing the manuscript. He feels that the book will be valuable not only future researchers and writers, but also allow existing publishers and editors of little magazines “to understand the history of their own practice and look at it with fresh eyes”.

In addition, Mangesh will digitise the crucial publications from the 1960s and 1970s, a defining era for the little magazine movement. Mangesh says, “The reason for focusing on the post-Salyakatha period is that the magazines published in this period were widely experimental in terms of their prescntation...rejecting familiar forms that characterized these magazines to create their distinct place in history.” DVDs of digitised copies of these key magazines will be distributed to University libraries and institutions across Maharashtra. Mangesh has prepared a list of 25 libraries and centres to which these DVDs would be sent.

This description is part of the institutional records created by IFA at the onset of the grant. The project may have changed in due course as reflected in the deliverables from the Grantee.