• Railway Bookselling and the Politics of Print in India:The Case of A.H. Wheeler
• Ritika Prasad (bio)

It was 2004. The railway minister of a newly elected government was presenting the railway budget in parliament. Outlining his agenda for enhancing "transparency," and "competitiveness," Lalu Prasad Yadav took umbrage at the ubiquitous presence of a firm of railway booksellers, A.H. Wheeler, which ran bookstalls across India's railways, except on the Southern and part of the South Central divisions.¹ Asking why Wheeler's bookstalls could be found everywhere, the minister dismissed the firm as a vestige of India's colonial past, complaining that while the English had left Indiamore than half a century ago—in 1947—Wheeler had remained ("Angrez chala gaya lekin Wheeler rah gaya").²

Yadav's charge was rhetorical, not historical. A.H. Wheeler & Co. was established in 1877 by an English-educated Frenchman, Emile Edward Moreau, who came to Allahabad "as a representative of Bird & Company, Calcutta, and an English firm."³ From time spent in England, he knew Arthur Henry Wheeler and affiliated his new venture with this established firm of English booksellers. The contract of 2 August 1890 between Wheeler and the Government of India's Public Works Department designates Moreau as the sole lessee, listing the firm's commercial address in Calcutta (39, Strand) and Allahabad (14 Canning Road).⁴ However, before returning to England in 1937, Moreau transferred his shares to T.K. Banerjee, an Indian who had been working for Wheeler for almost two decades before he became a partner in the 1920s. The Banerjee family continued to manage Wheeler post-independence; in 1953, it was incorporated as a joint-stock company under the Indian Companies Act, 1913. Until 1960, Wheeler held a monopoly over running bookstalls at various railway divisions but, after 1961, its sole selling rights began to be restricted to particular railway stations and, from 1 January 1976, only to stations where it already had bookstalls.⁵ Its ten-year contracts were subject to renewal based on performance. [End Page 115]

Wheeler was not the only presence on Indian railways. Higginbotham's, a bookstore chain established in 1844, dominated railway bookselling in peninsular India, while the philanthropic Gita Press and "unemployed graduates" ran some others.⁶ Wheeler ran bookstalls at 258 railway stations which, technically, amounted to only three percent of India's 8,055 stations. However, the firm did dominate the trade financially: thus, in 2002, it contributed about eighty percent of the income from railway bookstalls in India, comprising Rs. 13.8 million (1.38 crore) of a total of Rs. 16.6 million (1.66 crore).⁷ This, perhaps, lay at the heart of Yadav's charge, which swiftly translated into policy: new licensing regulations issued in October 2004 voided Wheeler's existing licenses.⁸ The firm challenged this "malafide" and "arbitrary" change in the Allahabad High Court and won in 2005 (though some matters remain pending in the Supreme Court).⁹ Despite this respite, Wheeler's identity as a railway bookseller is changing dramatically: through a new government policy introduced in 2017, its bookstalls are being converted to "multi-purpose" stalls that will sell food, medicines, and other sundries necessary for railway passengers.¹⁰

The political and legal wrangling certainly brought Wheeler into the news. However, it obscured how the firm's history materializes the intersection of two critical technologies: railways and print. Wheeler's railway bookstalls embody the process through which, globally, railway travel became integral to the circulation of commercial print while, simultaneously, expanding print consumption transformed the experience of railway travel. For almost 150 years, Wheeler's bookstalls have translated the abstraction of these "big technologies" into the everyday experience of Indians.¹¹ Given the conditions of railway travel, the metrics of literacy, and Wheeler's early commercial focus on English-language material, this experience became accessible, popular, and shared only gradually. However, since railway stations were—and continue to be—one of the most dense public spaces in India, Wheeler's bookstalls became a palpable presence for inordinate numbers of people, whether they purchased from them, browsed their stock, or simply glanced at them as they walked past...

• 印度的铁路售书与印刷政治：AH Wheeler案
• 里蒂卡·普拉萨德（Ritika Prasad）（生物）

这是2004年新当选政府提出铁路预算在议会铁路部长。拉鲁·普拉萨德·雅达夫（Lalu Prasad Yadav）概述了他为提高“透明度”和“竞争力”而制定的议程，并对无处不在的铁路书商AH Wheeler表示敬意。师。¹问为什么惠勒的书摊到处都能找到，部长驳回了公司在印度的殖民历史的遗迹，抱怨而英语已经离开Indiamore半个多世纪前，在1947年-惠勒一直保持（” Angrez查拉格雅lekin惠勒rah gaya ”）。^2个

Yadav的指控是修辞性的，不是历史性的。AH Wheeler＆Co.于1877年由受过英语教育的法国人Emile Edward Moreau创立，他以“ Bird＆Company，加尔各答的代表和一家英国公司的代表”的身份来到阿拉哈巴德。³从在英国度过的时间起，他就认识了亚瑟·亨利·惠勒（Arthur Henry Wheeler），并将他的新事业与这家老牌英语书商建立了联系。1890年8月2日，惠勒与印度政府公共工程部门签订的合同指定莫罗为唯一承租人，并列出了该公司在加尔各答（斯特兰德街39号）和阿拉哈巴德（坎宁路14号）的商业地址。⁴但是，在1937年返回英国之前，莫罗将其股份转让给了TK Banerjee，他是一位在惠勒工作了将近二十年的印度人，直到他成为1920年代的合伙人。Banerjee家族继续管理Wheeler独立后。1953年，根据1913年的《印度公司法》，该公司以股份公司的形式成立。直到1960年，惠勒对各铁路部门经营的书报摊拥有垄断地位，但1961年之后，其唯一的销售权开始仅限于特定铁路从1976年1月1日起，仅到达已经有书架的车站。⁵其十年合同可能会根据业绩续签。[结束第115页]

惠勒不是印度铁路上唯一的一家公司。希金博瑟姆（Higginbotham's）是一家成立于1844年的书店连锁店，在印度半岛的铁路书店中占据主导地位，而慈善机构吉塔出版社（Gita Press）和“失业毕业生”则另当别论。⁶惠勒在258个火车站运行书报摊，从技术上讲，这仅占印度8055个火车站的3％。但是，该公司确实在财务上主导了贸易：因此，在2002年，它贡献了印度铁路书报摊收入的80％，其中包括卢比。总计1380万卢比（138万千万卢比）。1,660万（1.66千万）。⁷这也许是Yadav指控的核心内容，该指控迅速转变为政策：2004年10月发布的新许可法规使Wheeler的现有许可无效。该公司在阿拉哈巴德高等法院对这种“恶意”和“任意”变更提出异议，并于2005年获胜（尽管某些事项尚待最高法院审理）。⁹尽管有这种喘息的机会，惠勒作为铁路书商的身份正在发生巨大变化：通过2017年推出的新政府政策，其书报亭已转变为“多用途”摊位，将出售铁路乘客所需的食品，药品和其他杂物。¹⁰

政治和法律上的争论无疑使惠勒成为新闻。然而，它遮蔽了公司的历史如何物化的两个关键技术的交集：铁路和打印。惠勒的铁路书架体现了这一过程，在这个过程中，全球范围内，铁路旅行已成为商业印刷流通的组成部分，与此同时，不断扩大的印刷消费量也改变了铁路旅行的体验。在将近150年的时间里，惠勒（Wheeler）的书报将这些“大技术”的抽象概念转化为印度人的日常经历。¹¹考虑到铁路旅行的条件，读写能力的标准以及惠勒早期对英语材料的商业关注，这种经历变得越来越容易获得，普及和共享。但是，由于火车站一直是（而且一直是）印度最密集的公共场所之一，因此惠勒的书报成为了无数人的明显关注对象，无论他们是从他们那里购买，浏览他们的存货，还是只是瞥了一眼他们他们走过去...