Of Legal Action and Colourful Defiance on Jaipur Literature Festival

By Santanu Ganguly, Jaipur: The mood was one of a lazy Sunday at the Jaipur Literature Festival on the fourth day pushing literature to the sidelines. The visitors — mostly revelers — flowed in at infrequent intervals to chill out on the manicured lawns ambling past the venues and flocking to a few well-publicized discourses like Michael Sandel’s “The Public Philospher” and “Re-imagining the Kamasutra” and panels on Indian cinema.

Was it a lull before a stormy finish? A delegate said the excitement that had built up around the controversy over leading social scientist and analyst Ashis Nandy’s remarks about corruption among the Dalit and backward groups had died, taking the steam off the festival. Controversies feed literature.

The action, however, is still underway away from prying eyes. A legal notice has been served on the organizers of the festival for a hearing in court Monday about the “presence of two of the four authors who had read out excerpts from Salman Rushdie’s ‘Satanic Verses’ last year.” The hardline Muslim outfits had sought a ban on four writers —novelists Jeet Thayil, Hari Kunzru, Amitava Kumar and Ruchir Joshi— in the run-up to the festival.

The festival, however, put its foot down on the churnings of sectarian politics by honoring Thayil for his acclaimed debut novel, “Narcopolis”.

Another notice has been served on scholar Ashis Nandy and producer of the festival Sanjoy K. Roy for allowing Nandy to comment against marginalized groups. An FIR under SCT/ST Act has been filed against the two for allegedly “defaming the SC/ST groups”.

It was the work of a “splinter group”, producer of the festival Sanjoy K. Roy said. “Nobody had given them the attention they wanted, so they decided to let a little fireball loose… Ashis Nandy is one of the most erudite men in the country. Some people blew it out of proportion,” Roy told IANS.

In one corner of the festival, a group of young volunteers was busy compiling statistics. So far, 57,000 unique (individual) registrations at the counter and 100,000, a JLF volunteer toted numbers. “By tomorrow, we hope it crosses last year’s mark of 120,000,” he said.

That is heartening. The festival is in talks with “interested parties” to move to a bigger venue, Roy hinted. Never mind, this year was bad, but every big gala has its sporadic lows.

But bigger venue means bigger business. And more sponsors. It is time literature festivals across the country must learn to speak for themselves, Roy said.