It’s Not too Late for Open Access in India | Katina Magazine

"Open access advocacy in India has been largely a one-man effort by Subbiah Arunachalam, an information scientist interested in scholarly communication, scientometrics, science policy, and information and communication technologies for development (Madhan, 2017; Arunachalam, 2024). For more than 25 years, he has advocated relentlessly for worldwide open access to scientific information. Indeed, he initiated India’s first discussion on the topic, inviting Stevan Harnad, a pioneer in the field, as early as 2000 (Arunachalam, 2001). Arunachalam’s advocacy is motivated by the enduring difficulties faced by researchers in developing countries, particularly India, when it comes to access to information and research visibility (Arunachalam, 1993).

When scholarly communication relied on print media, researchers in India had much less access to scientific information than their counterparts in the United States and Europe. In 1989, Indian neurosurgeon Sunil Pandya wrote in the British Medical Journal about how the rising costs of journals and books often placed them out of reach for students, teachers in medical institutions, and rural or semi-urban doctors in India (Pandya, 1989). Even the best of India’s academic and research libraries typically subscribed to far fewer journals than American and European institutions (The Internet and the Developing World, 1998). Commercial publishers were not interested in distributing medical journals in developing countries, which they did not see as a profitable market (Kale, 1994). Paradoxically, the shift to online journals increased subscription costs, making access less affordable even for institutions in developed countries like the United States (Big Deal Cancellations, n.d.). But the shift also widened the information access gap between research institutions within India and those elsewhere.

Even today, only a limited number of Indian institutions can afford to subscribe to high-quality journals, creating a noticeable divide between these relatively well-funded institutions and most others. The stark differences in library spending across top Indian universities underscores the divide, which is even more pronounced given India’s extensive network of universities and colleges (MoE, 2024).

Recognizing the futility of appealing to the conscience of publishers in an oligopolistic industry, Arunachalam has advocated for open access solutions that operate independently of commercial publishers (Arunachalam, 2017; Arunachalam, 2014). He has championed the self-archiving of research papers in interoperable preprint servers and institutional repositories managed by universities, research institutions, and funding agencies, and advocated for the use of open access journals that do not charge authors or readers (known as diamond open access journals). He has argued on ethical grounds against the practice of authors paying journals to publish their papers.

Several government agencies in India have recognized Arunachalam’s efforts and acted in response to his advocacy. But Arunachalam’s vision for open access in India has yet to become a reality...."