Is the Jaipur Literary Festival Being Saffronized

September 16,2022

This week, Shazia Ilmi and Guru Prakash Paswan spoke in New York at an event organized jointly by the Jaipur Literary Festival (JLF) and Asia Society. Paswan also spoke at a similar joint event in Houston last weekend. The topic of their chat was “Intersections: Searching Equity,” an “important conversation …(about) the wounds of history and the processes of restorative justice.”

Both speakers, the JLF program site states, are “national spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party “(BJP), which rules India with Narendra Modi as Prime Minister. It adds that Ilmi was a former television journalist and Paswan is the co-author of Makers of Modern Dalit History (2021), with neither being recognized for intellectual accomplishments on par with other speakers. The two BJP officials, interviewed by a journalist, were the only speakers on the issue of equity.

Since 2007, the JLF has annually invited writers, humanitarians, politicians, business leaders, sports figures, artists, and entertainers to speak in Jaipur, Rajasthan. It says its goal is to get “a diverse mix of the world’s greatest on one stage to champion the freedom to express and engage in thoughtful debate and dialogue.”

Past speakers have included Nobel Laureates, writers J.M. Coetzee and Orhan Pamuk, economist Amartya Sen and humanitarian Muhammad Yunus; Man Booker Prize winners Ben Okri, Margaret Atwood and Paul Beatty; the Dalai Lama and Oprah Winfrey; and noted Indian authors and film personalities Amish Tripathi, Vikram Seth, Girish Karnad, Gulzar, Javed Akhtar and Amitabh Bachchan.

The JLF website describes the five-day program in Jaipur as the “greatest literary show on Earth.” The festival has expanded to JLF events in London, Toronto, Adelaide, Colorado and Belfast, in addition to New York and Houston. The events are organized by Namita Gokhale and William Dalrymple, Indian and British writers respectively, along with Sanjoy Roy of Teamwork Arts as producer.   

Given JLF’s claim of being the greatest global literary show, the question arises as to why it invited Ilmi and Paswan to speak, and that too about equity issues in India at events in the U.S., given that their main qualification was that of being spokespersons for Modi’s party?

Surely the JLF and Asia Society could have easily found speakers with far more credible reputations to speak about equity issues in India. Also, the program schedule in the U.S. was limited – for instance, only eight panels and conversations in New York, besides music and arts programs. So, assuming the organizers could not find non-partisan speakers, they could have easily replaced Ilmi and Paswan with speakers on another topic.

Was the JLF under pressure from the Asia Society, the co-host of the events in New York and Houston, to invite BJP speakers? The joint program, according to Asia Society was part of its “Spotlight on India.” Or were they invited by the JLF organizers – perhaps Gokhale, Dalrymple and Roy or with their approval - to appease BJP and Modi government officials? And if so, why?

Presumably the JLF and Asia Society may defend their inviting Ilmi and Paswan on the premise of having a free and open debate. The JLF says its “core values remain unchanged: to serve as a democratic, non-aligned platform offering free and fair access.” But there was no other speaker on Ilmi and Paswan’s panel to present views opposed to that of the BJP and “engage in thoughtful debate and dialogue.”

U.S. based groups, who oppose the Hindu nationalist agenda of the BJP, asked speakers to boycott JLF New York. As word spread about the invites to BJP officials, at least three speakers boycotted, including authors Marie Brenner and Amy Waldman. Brenner is the author of seven books and writes for Vanity Fair. Her exposé of the tobacco industry was the basis for the 1999 movie The Insider, which was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Waldman, who was co-chief of the South Asia bureau of The New York Times, was to speak with author Akash Kapur. The organizers, without disclosing the change - as well as Brenner’s absence - had Myna Mukherjee speak with Kapur. The JLF and Asia Society New York sites had no biographical information on Mukherjee.

The American speakers at JLF events in the U.S. were made to believe that they were attending a festival with respectable, intellectuals, British Indian author Aatish Taseer told the The Wire. If your aim is to make BJP’s Hindu extremism palatable, “let people know what they’re signing up for.” Many of the American speakers “would never be caught dead with these [BJP] people. So it’s a really, really insidious and sly thing that the JLF leaders have done.”

Since Modi first became Prime Minister in 2014, the BJP, and the secretive, hierarchical, militant Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh that is said to control it, are reportedly seeking to saffronize – inject Hindu nationalism – in all aspects of Indian society: from poltics and the media to school text books, college administration, arts and culture, while seeking to silence those critical of their agenda in India and abroad.  

Now that BJP officials have participated in JLF events can the JLF prevent further damage to its reputation by not inviting BJP ideologues to future JLF events? The camel has put its nose in the tent – will it soon creep in further and occupy the tent, getting rid of some of those in it? Or perhaps destroy the tent?

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