Of Gods and Men: The JLF story (Rushdie, Hari Kunzru, Amitava Kumar, Satanic Verses)

[Published in Book Link, Feb 2012 issue -- forthcoming]



Hari Kunzru, JLF 2012

 When Amitava Kumar began the session with Hari Kunzru at Durbar Hall packed to capacity on 20th January, he began with the declaration that they were going to start the discussion about gods and men, but slightly different kinds of god and different kinds of men.

The confirmation of Salman Rushdie’s cancelled visit to Jaipur had  had a predictable impact on all author-participants. Most of them were livid at the organizers’ ‘pusillanimity’ at allowing a handful of religious conservatives to get away with murder – almost literally. To express their solidarity with the victim, Amitava and Kunzru then began to read out certain lines from the Satanic Verses, Rushdie’s contentious book, unfortunately, still banned in India.

They had barely read out about four lines, and were commenting upon the beauty of Rushdie’s prose when the festival director, Sanjoy Roy, stepped in broke the trance – a trance created by those simple four lines of Rushdie’s exquisite prose that made no reference to religion.

Sitting in the front row, bang opposite the speakers when they started, my first thoughts were about what must be going through the minds of all the audience sitting in the same hall. While most had cheered the move with an ear-defying applause, there were some who’d come particularly for Kunzru and not Rushdie and weren’t happy about it. Regardless, the atmosphere was electric for those few moments. There was that unexpected excitement at being allowed a glimpse into what had so far been unfamiliar and forbidden, accompanied by various notches of tension at the same privilege. And, with Sanjoy Roy’s intervention at that juncture, the same performance suddenly somersaulted to low-voltage and did not pick up again for the rest of the session though both the brilliant authors sitting at the helm tried their best to recreate the magic. Sadly, they had to make their quick exits soon after, fearing arrest.

It would be pointless to deny, the organizers’ stance notwithstanding, that this year’s JLF has been revolving around the Rushdie sun. The forced cancellation of his visit perhaps lent more weight to words like dissent, censorship, absolute freedom of expression, strategic silence, oppression and, more importantly, ‘Talibanization of Literature’ and ‘cultural fundamentalism’ – topics mentioned, skimmed over, or chewed upon – in almost all the sessions across the venues or genres.

A session titled ‘Creativity, Censorship, and Dissent’ with participation from well-known writers such as Tahmima Anam, Siddharth Gigoo, Prasoon Joshi, Charu Nivedita, Cheran, moderated by Shoma Chaudhury of Tehelka, took up these very threads on day two of the festival. Ironically, the discussion threw up the interesting idea that in present-day India, there isn’t enough subversive or provocative writing happening. No boundaries being pushed; no power structures being questioned, even by serious writers. Authors have begun to play it safe. And, indeed, it may be true that ours has become a land of the Lotus Eaters – a worrying fact for those who still feel that Literature has a rationale and purpose to serve beyond entertainment.

In Rushdie’s case in particular, two issues have inadvertently, if inevitably, been fused together – hurting or offending sentiments of some members of a certain clan (by allowing a certain author to attend the festival), and ‘illegal activity’ as a form of protest (i.e., reading a couple of lines from his banned book).

With regard to the former, another question strikes me: What about the sentiments of the other party? Do they count for nothing? And, as far as the latter case in concerned, much has been said and written about censorship and book banning by all of us already.

Shoma had a significant observation to make – that the majority of the people so passionately supporting the ban of Satanic Verses haven’t even read the book, but then so haven’t the majority of the people opposing it.

And yet many amongst them would have liked to, but were never allowed an opportunity simply because someone else had already made the decision for them without ever bothering to consult them about the matter. What is that if not an arbitrary act? What is it if not a dictatorship of sorts that allows no voice to the other?

The intelligentsia was open to a face-to-face discussion/debate with the ‘hurt’ party. Most rued the fact that the offended party wasn’t willing to engage in one. It was a deliberate and obdurate opaqueness no one could penetrate, and the state government went along with them.


Amitava Kumar, Hari Kunzru: JLF 2012


At one point during the discussion, Tahmima Anam, whose novel, The Good Muslim appeared last year, condemned censorship. She said, ‘There is no Muslim community, but many Muslim communities.’ And, to elucidate her point, she mentioned a magazine in the UK called The Critical Muslim that has been started by one such community to discuss/debate/challenge differences in ideologies, views, and beliefs, by various intellectuals/philosophers/thinkers. 

Of late the issue of censorship has risen again and again in different contexts, whether it’s Rushdie's work or Taslima Nasreen’s, Lelyveld’s book on Gandhi, or Ramanujan’s essay.

Yes, Section 19 (1) (A) of the Indian Constitution allows freedom of speech, and then perhaps immediately qualifies it. It’s somewhat like being taught ‘the more the merrier’ while simultaneously being warned about what too many cooks do to the broth. As Cherian pointed out, the responsibility that accompanies freedom cannot be legislated or ‘constitutionalized’. In spite of modernization and paradigm shifts in modern thought, even today authors can either opt for ‘strategic silence’ and play it safe in their writings; choose to go into exile before they call a spade a spade; or simply articulate dissent when and where they are and risk getting killed.

It is shameful indeed that the world’s largest democracy cannot stand by its own people.