Lit fest addresses marginalisation of regional literature

At the LIC-Gateway LitFest held over the weekend, issues pertaining to Indian literature in regional languages as well as the freedom of expression in literature were among the topics that were discussed.
The focus though lay on the marginalization of literature written in regional languages.

"Many people believe that Dalit writing or the literature of regional languages is a trend, but there are many changes that are appearing. For instance, literature now also reflects the modern circumstances of globalization and urbanization," said Urmila Pawar.

Malayalam author, Kalpetta Narayan added another dimension to the discussion when he said, "Most literature always assumes that 'He' includes 'she' but not vice-versa so when I'm writing I make it a point to include a 'She' exclusively for my characters."

Narayan added, "In Malayalam literature, we don't really have Dalit or tribal literature. What we do have is largely in Sanskrit." From the perspective of publishers' responses, Sachin Ketkar, who has translated many Gujarathi dalit literature in English, said, "Although Dalit literature is becoming more popular and therefore more publishers are willing to publish such writing, the problem lies in the that they don't accept the local idioms translated into the global idiom (i.e. English), so they're looking for some compliance at the cost of losing its local flavors."

An audience member said about the discussion, "It's about time that we brought the regional languages to the mainstream, however it would be better if the discussion was longer and the panelists shared a common language because if they can't understand each other then it defeats the point of the discussion."