By Siddhant Mohan, TwoCircles.net
The world-famous Jaipur Literature Festival, or JLF, has entered in its eleventh chapter this year. JLF has been inviting writers – both Indian and non-Indian ones – from diverse backgrounds to its various sessions spread across several days.
But JLF, which is now sponsored by Zee, has also faced criticism from various Indian writers in the recent past when it completely failed to address Indian languages – other than Hindi – and literature coming out from Dalit and Tribal communities of India. And to narrate the same, the Progressive Writers’ Association at Rajasthan has established Parallel Literature Festival aka PLF on the same dates as the JLF.
The three-day long Parallel Literature Festival is based on the legacy of Hindi and Rajasthani writers. Moreover, various sessions of PLF will be addressed on the literary works coming out of the Dalit and Tribal community.
Krishna Kalpit, a Hindi poet and convener at PLF, explained the motive of the festival and the issues it is going to address in a conversation with TwoCircles.net. Kalpit said, “We have been thinking of developing a counter-narrative to JLF for a long time. JLF deliberately ignores other Indian languages like Rajasthani, Urdu, Gujarati, Marathi and the languages from the north-eastern part of the country which have been contributing to the Indian literary world on a large scale.”
“At PLF, we have tried to incorporate as much as languages in these three days which are spread between 24 sessions of talks and poetry,” added Kalpit.
Since 2015, the issue of rising intolerance in the country and the subsequent returning of awards by Indian writers and artists began, but “elite” forums of talk altogether bypassed the debate when it was supposed to come on the table. “This is the price one always has to pay when literature is being decided by the corporate funding,” said Kalpit while implying towards the funding and setup of Jaipur Literature Festival. The JLF has a host of sponsors like Zee, Cox and Kings, Tanishq, Bank of Baroda, and Amity University.
Some of the names which are participating in the PLF are Ashok Vajpeyi, Vishnu Khare, Kedarnath Singh, Ali Javed, Asad Zaidi, Mangalesh Dabral, VN Rai, Noor Zahir, Anil Yadav, Tasneem Khan, Ummed Dhania, Rameshwar Godara, Devi Prasad Mishra, Balram Kanvat, Prabhat, Prof Khalid Mehmood, Anjum Usmani, Prof Ali Ahmad Fatmi and many others.
Moreover, the sessions stretched over all three days of Parallel Literature Festival – which will be held in Youth Hostel, Ambedkar Circle, Jaipur – are focused on topics which are usually not tabled in other literature and arts festival. Sessions like “Claimants of forests – Tribes and Tribal Life”, “Cultural Crisis in South Asia”, “Plight of displacement from Sindh”, “Dalit literature of Rajasthan”, “Post-truth in Indian democracy”, “Conspiracy behind the disapproval of Rajasthani language”, “Dalit presence in Indian literature”, “Future of Urdu”, “Decline of language in Politics” and several others are all set to “maximise the impact which JLF has failed to produce ever.”
“We are not taking any money from corporate houses. PLF is a protest against the disrespect of Indian vernacular language and culture, which JLF has committed in the past,” said Kalpit.
The entry at PLF will be free, contrary to the JLF where around every person has to pay Rs 200 for a single day to attend the sessions. Moreover, JLF tickets – which are also available for sale on online platforms – are priced as high as Rs 5,400 per day for a single delegate pass which will include drinks, food and lounge access to the people coming to Diggi Palace. Kalpit said, “That is why we say that JLF is just an entertainment show, which does not reflect the seriousness and effort involved in creating a piece of literature.”
With the announcement of PLF, controversy has also surrounded the event even before it has begun. Few influential Hindi writers and editors have openly written countering the idea of PLF and pointed out that the same dates as JLF is an attempt to create controversy. Moreover, JLF organisers have dismissed the allegation made by PLF organisers in a statement: “At the 11th edition, we will have over 350 speakers, with 30 writers representing Hindi. There will also be 50 other speakers, representing 15 other major Indian languages,” it said.
But these facts are unlikely to deter the organisers of PLF – chiefly Rituraj, Ish Madhu Talwar and Krishna Kalpit – and other members of left-liberal Progressive Writers’ Association, who are committed with their way of protest against the “corporate entertainment of literature”.