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Jaipur Lit Festival director disrupts session

Namita Gokhale loses her cool at panellist’s comment that organisers were ‘kowtowing to fanatics’.

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They came, they spoke their minds, they got sent home. Authors who read from Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses at the Jaipur Literature Festival were asked to sign a release absolving the organisers of any responsibility in their decision. Hari Kunzru, Amitava Kumar, Jeet Thayil and Ruchir Joshi left the festival on Saturday, allegedly because there was a “threat to their lives, and to the safety of the festival”. 


Sources told DNA that the four authors were made to consult a lawyer, allegedly the son of one of the speakers at the festival, and were informed that it was in their best legal interests to sign a document saying they did this of their own accord and that the organisers had nothing to do with their decision. “They were then told, categorically, that they weren’t welcome at Diggi Palace anymore,” sources said. 


In what is becoming probably the largest controversy this literature festival has seen, other authors are now taking umbrage at this development. At a session titled ‘A Second Sunrise: The Literature of Protest’, S Anand, publisher of Navayana and moderator of the session, started by reading a passage from Satanic Verses just to make a statement. 


“I hadn’t read the book before this controversy and the passage I’m reading now is not the least bit controversial. Who’s going to arrest me?” he said to an applauding audience. 


Sources said that after the incident with the four authors, the organisers had asked other delegates to say what they wanted, protest even, but “within the framework of the constitution”. “The subject of this discussion is ‘Literature of Protest’. Can someone please tell me how one can protest within the constitutional framework?” Anand asked the audience.


But word spread about how panellists were telling the audience that the festival was “kowtowing to fanatics.” The session was then disrupted by one of the Festival directors, a visibly agitated Namita Gokhale, who took over the mike. “The festival is not kowtowing to anything, and I want to clarify that the authors were not asked to leave. They left on their own accord for safety reasons,” she said.


The tension in the room was palpable. At this point, a member from the audience stood up and said she had seen the authors sign the release, to which Gokhale responded: “This media hype is shutting down the voices of the 260+ authors who are at the festival. I have no problems with Rushdie’s work, and you’re welcome to read it, but please do it at your own cost at any other public place, not this festival.”


“There’s no excuse for the organisers to say that this controversy is shutting down all our voices,” Anand said, just as Gokhale was leaving the hall. He was earlier talking about how one is expected to “protest within the constitutional framework”. 


He said that a number of other delegates at the festival were irked by the developments and were willing to forego their visas for next year’s event. “There’s no excuse for inviting writers and then asking them to sign a paper they didn’t write when then they speak their minds,” Anand added. The hall responded with loud applause. 

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