"Jaipur Literature Festival: Republic of Ideas Vs. Culture of Intolerance"

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“I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and Non-violence 
are as old as the hills. All I have done is to try experiments in both
on as vast a scale as I could.” ---Mahatma Gandhi

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Bhalchandra Nemade, author who broke with traditions of sacrosanct style of presenting culture, literature and language was speaking in exactly same tone as Mahatma was expressing few decades ago. Born in pre-independence days and having written path-breaking Novel Kosla in experimental, rebellious days of 1960s, as was the case all over the world; Dr. Nemade has tried to immortalize heritage of our most basic emotions out of daily life i.e. longing towards cherishing virtues of life while at the same time without being detached from vacuum, nothingness and futileness of temporary matters in our affair with material quest. Dr. Nemade said that by breaking up language, text and symbol he has done nothing new but only lived to the great legacy of Tukaram, Buddha and Phule. In fact, while realizing that all rebellious voices have been uttered by these great thinkers, he considers it as just emulating them without slightest impact the legendary characters of history had.

If you consider yourself a literary rebel, then be sure that whole world is shaped and decided by you. This point was emphasized by one session which discussed 'Maps of Love and Hate: Nationalism and Arab Literature'—that not a single identity of the countries in middle east, west Asia has been defined by politicians, statesmen but by authors, novelists, playwrights.  The dissent which I represent has to be inspired from the diverse coalition of all castes, creeds, religions, languages and beliefs. When I write, I have to write for all of them.  I feel very rich having a rich and extended family of kins—organic and social. These views were echoed by Jeet Thayel whose recent novel ‘Narcopolis’ was nominated for Booker Prize.

There are many types of narratives and different streams of interpretations in our culture and literature. There are norms with which these interpretations has to be documented in literature, expressed in performing arts, broadcasted and disseminate through traditional and modern media.  But subverting those styles, those “biased sacred norms” for mocking at the history, reimagining history and thus reinterpret our present and perspectives towards future in more nuanced / native`s way is my core idea of thematic narration of daily life which I did in Kosla.

“I was the first person in Marathi to use the Khandeshi language for writing a novel by breaking the long standing tradition and admanant one sided belief that creativity can be expressed in only one manner and that is tried but not contested by out of the way experiments. I used diary form to great extent in the novel to open up my unorthodox way of looking towards life. Strength of diary form refuses categorization of communities, cultures, thinking. I wanted to use humour, sarcastic way of mocking at history.”  

From another session where Anjum Hasan, Gayatri Chakravorthi Spivac, Manu Jospeh, Chandrahas Chaudhari discussed what constitutes criticism, reviewing and appreciating books, literature. Criticizing any work is all about writing, thinking and building connections between them. We should always try to understand what writer wants to say. Thirty fourty years ago when the voices of oppressed and downtrodden were started to be echoed in the sub-altern   literature it was largely following tradition of powerful convictions of French deconstructionists.

“You cannot approach subaltern with metaphor. You have to be direct, explicit, provocative and honest in your submission.”

Manu Joseph, writer of a novel ‘Serious Men’, referred cook Rat in a movie ‘Ratatouille’. The protagonist in this movie describes the great experiments Rat cook does while being in Paris. Role of critic or reviewer is not to write what people want to read. One cannot be good critic who wants to play safe. Great artist/writer can come from anywhere no matter what the background is. Christhopher Ricks said that we have to remember where the technique starts and where it ends. We have to rehear and reimagine the  ways of interpreating literature. Wit is so important a weapon in inspecting the opinions and review, critic gives a sharp way of doing it. We have to develop analytical skills, sensibility of method, how much a personality has invested in understanding the thoughts and arguments in the book. He also said that there is a difference between what critic from academia writes and that what reviewer from media writes about contemporary and historical books. Reviewers educational background may help them to become critic but reviewer`s ability to connect to the thinking, aspirations of readers is better suited to them to become a dependable reviewer. Criticism brings in lot of information about the history of the subject of text, knowledge about the diversity, problem areas, arguments existing, evolving in literature and thus the ability to analyze the complex texts. Reviewers have to do the same thing considering the positive intention of the readers towards the books which they might read after going through the review.

Anjum Hasan referred to Amit Chaoudhari who analyses often the necessity to go beyond virtues of ‘cultural nationalism’; creating inhabitation of our self transcends national, racial, regional boundaries. Local, nuanced and thematic appreciation of the making of the book leads to global because the original virtues are essentially diverse, located in specific locality and always having special ecology.  What writer is doing has direct connections with a theory put by Ronald Barthez  i.e. Death of Author. Sometimes believing the ‘death of an author’ after the book has been published may infuse limitations in our assessment of the work. We have to understand how author has negotiated self with text; what exactly author is doing, rather than what author has said in a text? What about mind behind writing? When asked by someone  that for a common reader who does not know deconstruction by Derrida, Foucault how meaningful and relevant can be book criticism and book review then panel replied that we should be able to give entire picture, spectrum of arguments from contemporary, literary history so as to respect freedom of readers mind to think about it proactively.

Gayatri Spivac said that criticism can become boring as a teaching subject except when one looks at it out of historical context. “First we have to teach how to perform a reading of a text”, she said. Ranajit Guha, Dipesh Chakravarty have written extensively about sub-altern movement and literature. By invoking Derrida, she said that “Reason” remains the principle weapon behind the strengthening of sub-altern voices. But we have to be sensible for understanding the difference between “reason” and “reasonable”. For fearless critic of writers, we have to expand our reading base. By consistent reading we have to manage to discover unearthing gems from ocean of literary criticism.

Finally Anjum Hasan said that book reviewer should not be a reviewer alone, they should do their other day jobs. By just being book reviewer, one can become monotonous, narrow minded conservative in assessing books through one lens only. We have to be grateful by acknowledging the great legacy of work done in particular theme because we cannot move ahead in reviewing any work without reflecting on the great body of work done previously either supporting or rejecting our point of view. Every work has great historical relationship with previously published equally and more compelling works so listening, reading of those voices is very significant process while reviewing, criticizing upcoming work. It must be remembered that reviewing is not being judgmental. Quick opinion must not be confused with slowly developed argument. Our judgment has to evolve through carefully crafted through arguments. In a way book-reviewing and book-criticism has a long way to go in India.

Its all about engagement with a text, culture and minds. Review is a bit follower of charm of writing but critic may patronize particular tradition of the intellectual history while finalizing the critic of new books. Panel expressed their unhappiness over the fact that book reviewing and book criticism has become hostage to the marketing, advertising, and promotion professionals in India and therefore one can get swayed away by torrent of PR so as to ignore original/harsh reviews.

“Colonization of mind through English language was another issue of discussion of another session where diplomat Pawan Verma, journalist Ravish Kumar, critic Ashok Vajpayee, academic and write Uday Narayan Singh, write Ira Pande were discussing the dialectic between Hindi and English. All of them agreed that Hindi has become colonial ‘English’ for all of the Indians in a way we can’t live without it but still being hegemonised by it. In session, The Vanishing Present:Post Colonial Critiques Anjum Hasan interviewed Gayatri Chakravorthy Spivok and Amit Chaoudhari. They discussed literature in the era of globalization, ethical impulse s in literature, relevance of aesthetics education, status of education in 21^st century and place of literature in university.

Prof. Spivac expressed great anguish that place of literature in university is vanishing slowly. You can’t train youngsters to read literature by emphasizing on the value or benefits of it. We have to sensitize about the process of how literature evolves in our life, how words get expression. We have to engage students in a dialogue about how to train our mind deeply into ethical impulse of literature with our whole soul, body and mind. We have to train our imagination though active imagination to change the ways of how we know.

Amit said that we have to imagine for whom we are writing for, who our foreign audiences are. While reading a text, we have to be aware about what the literary affiliations of the author are and what the literary arguments of author are. We have to understand how author creates oneness with readers? Assessing Literature is a very complex field. Current post-colonial literature suffers with a problem that it has allowed to glorify exotication of everything, language estrangement. There are different feelings about how we should write about different places. There is a special mythology about exoticizing we need to move away from. We have to develop a way to read things which have travelled. Globalization and changing profile of readership is compelling us to look towards literature and readership in a certain prejudiced way. English being engine of globalization, there are massive forces which are impacting provincialising of literature. German and French provinces of literature have their own way in thinking about life. We have to be aware about increasing trend in masses of writers in India who are thinking in English so not able to express themselves the issues from the roots here.

Discussing question that “Is reading literature an ethical practice?” Prof. Spivac said that We read to transform ourselves. We constantly try to learn through languages, books, experience, events, and processes. Literature allows us freedom to act of becoming different person, to feel unique experiences characters in book are having and thinking each jeanre in text is giving. Like Marathi poet Arun Kolhatkar, who used to say that I keep my pencil sharpened at both ends and I believe to write away from King`s English. Same was reflected when Bhalchandra Nemade was talking about his novel Kosla.

All the Ideas of Republic were at the forefront on 26^th January for confrontational debate on different stages named ‘Republic of Ideas’ participated by Tarun Tejpal, Patrik French, Ashish Nandy, Richard Sorabji, Urvashi Butalia. Another session on same day was devoted to ‘ Freedom of Speech and Expression’. The row created by previous session justified the perfect positioning of later. Ashish Nandy in his complex argument dealt with idea of equality in Indian context being strengthened by unavoidable evolution of corruption in all castes, classes and creeds leading towards making Indian republic more robust, vibrant and thriving living up to the great struggle of social and political movements our country witnessed for equal opportunities, justice and well-being to all kinds of people. This particular way of presenting argument received conservative political/social response leading towards exit of Prof. Nandy from the festival.

Session of freedom of expression was presented by John Kampfner, Shoma Chaudhury, John Burnside, Basharat Peer and Timothy Ash. This session greatly dealt with how government authorities react to the freedom of expression and how public deal with notion of free expression. To how much degree there is a desire in public to accept or be flexible to take offense. In todays India, we take freedom of expression for granted. Questioning the Article 19 (2) and its provisions which list the exceptions under which our right of freedom of expression can be repealed, is the need of the hour. In the age of “Market of Ideas”, we are debating democratic processes.  While discussing the freedom of expression there are two areas where the contestation about this is most prevalent; in cultural production and in public discourse. In creative culture production industry there must be freedom to experiment with text, art-form and craft unless it provokes communal disharmony and violence. In democratic/public discourse we have to develop senses, culture and environment where we respect the culture to take offenses in constructive ways. Freedom of expression in armchair activism has also created many problems, by taking absolute freedom.

Police are doing surveillance of press activities. Lot of magazines, newspapers remains dependent on advertisements given by central government agencies like DAVP etc. Legal threats, possibility of hacking by state/non-state actors are also possibility. Our laws give sanction to legislative actions if legislature is not satisfied with the coverage of specific issue. All those discussions were tested immediately in the real-time of festival as all types of threats were exercised on Prof.Nandy from boycott to arrest. 

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