THE JAIPUR LITERATURE
FESTIVAL – A REPORT
By
Maj
Gen VK Singh
The 7th DSC Jaipur Literature
Festival was held at Jaipur from 20th to 24th January
2012. The five day festival has now become one of the largest such events in
the World, earning epithets such as the Indian Woodstock and the Maha Kumbh of literature. Now in its seventh year, the JLF is held each
year during the month of January, in the Durbar Hall and gardens of the Diggi
Palace in the city centre. The 2012 event was truly an extravaganza of art,
literature and culture, attracting over 75,000 visitors and over five thousand
media stories on Google News.
For the first time ever,
the military was represented at the JLF. A session on military history was held
from 10 to 11 AM on 24th January at the Durbar hall. In the session
titled 'Indian Military History: The Missing Links',
the discussants were Major General VK Singh (Retd), a member of the USI; Shri
Chandrashekhar Dasgupta, IFS (Retd), a member of the USI Council; Squadron
Leader RTS Chhina (Retd), Secretary and Editor, CAFHR, USI; and Shri Anit
Mukherjee, a member of the IDSA. The session was moderated by Manoj Joshi, the
current comment editor of Mail today. As would be obvious, the USI was well
represented. In fact, the entire credit for getting a
slot in the JLF should go to the Director USI and his team.
Many of us were skeptical
about the interest and response that a mundane subject like military history
would elicit from the audience. Due to the bitter cold, the first session usually
has very thin crowds. Entry to the JLF has always been free and unrestricted.
This year, due to perceived terror threats to Salman Rushdie, who was expected
to attend, the organizers had introduced the system of issuing an ID card to
every visitor. This naturally took a lot of time, and led to long queues. As a result, very few could get an entry
before the beginning of the first session at 10 AM. One can imagine our
surprise when we found that the Durbar Hall had been filled up even before the
session started. Most of the visitors were not retired Army officers, but young
people, from school or college.
It is not intended to give
details of the points made by the discussants. The theme was the current policy
on declassification of military records and its impact on Indian military
history after Independence. Because of the refusal of the government of make
public the Henderson Brooks Report that examined the reasons for the 1962
debacle, all war records of subsequent operations have also not been declassified.
As a result, there are no official histories of the 1962, 1965 and 1971 wars. Of
course, there are accounts written by officers who have taken part in these
operations, but these are not based on authentic records such as war diaries,
after action reports etc. Hence they cannot be termed official histories. As is
well known, military history is an essential ingredient of the training of
young officers. Due to a virtual drought in this field, after 1961, officers in
training institutions such as the Indian Military Academy, Staff College and
War College are still studying World War II campaigns.
The
history division of the Ministry of Defence, which is responsible for
production of official military histories, has already written the official
histories of 1962, 1965 & 1971 wars. These are available on the website of
Bharat Rakshak.com. As Manoj Joshi interjected during the discussion, he was
himself instrumental in first putting them on the website of the Times of
India. In a way, they have already been published.
The history of the 1965 war has also been published in 2011 by Natraj
Publishers, Dehradun. This is a
reproduction of the India-Pakistan War of 1965, produced by the History
Division in 1992, which quotes extensively from war diaries held by it. This was made possible by a declassification
board held in 2005, which ‘downgraded’ the war diaries of 1965 which were
intended to be used for publication of the book. Similar boards have been held
in respect of 1962 and 1971 wars, and one can expect a similar history to be
published soon. Lt Gen Satish Nambiar (Retd), has gone on record to State that
when he was the DGMO, they had cleared the official histories of 1962, 1965
& 1971 for publication without any caveats. These recommendations have
either been ‘misplaced’ or are gathering dust in some dingy basement in South
Block. Meanwhile, the ‘official’ history still has to see the light of day.
Shortly after we returned from the JLF, there was
another interesting development. In the Oct-Dec 2011 issue of the USI Journal,
an account of the 1962 war has been published based on material obtained by
Chinese sources. The USI article clearly
brings out that the Chinese had made a deep study of the battle of Chosin Reservoir
during the Korean War of 1950-53, in which the Chinese were pitted against the
US Army in conditions similar to what they had to face in 1962. As a result they avoided the mistakes they
had made earlier and gave a better account in 1962. By denying Indian officers the opportunity to
study our past campaigns, the government is inadvertently ensuring that our
performance in future wars with China and Pakistan would not be at optimum
levels. One hopes that someone in the Ministry of Defence and Army Headquarters
realises what grave damage we are doing to our present and future generations
of soldiers, sailors and airmen. A conflict with China is the same areas where
we fought in 1962 is not unlikely in the near future. No one will tell them the
mistakes made by their forbears 50 years ago. Neither will they know the
tactics of the enemy that gave him a free run to the Assam plains in 1962.
Should we send our men to fight and die with blind folds on their eyes?
The pitfalls of keeping the war records classified
even after fifty years was brought out by each of the four speakers. It was
also reinforced by several veterans in the audience, as well as some young
people. In fact, one young lady floored us by asking why we were all talking
only of the impact of the non availability of records for research and training
etc. As a citizen, she wanted to know how and why our soldiers fought and died
during the many wars Indian had fought. A video recording of each session can
be seen or downloaded from the archives section of the website www.jaipurliteraturefestival.org.
Those who wish to see the session on military history should go to the archives
for 2012, and look for the session from 10 AM to 11 AM in the Durbar Hall on 24th
January (Day 5).
A brief note on the JLF and some
vignettes would not be out of place. The festival is an initiative of the
Jaipur Virasat Foundation founded by Faith Singh nee Hardy, an
English/Irish Christian brought up in the UK, who married Tony Singh, a cousin of the Maharaja,
and settled down in Jaipur more than 40 years ago. Looking for a means of
livelihood they founded Anokhi in 1970, which has become a global brand for
traditional Rajasthani textiles. In 2002
she established the Jaipur
Virasat Foundation to promote values of sustainable
development, social inclusiveness, and cultural conservation in its local
context. They also started the Jaipur Heritage International Festival, a two-week
annual event that exhibits Rajasthani crafts, arts and folk traditions. The first
Jaipur Literature Festival or JLF was held in 2006 as a segment of the Jaipur Heritage
International Festival. By 2008 it had developed into a free-standing festival
of literature standing on its own feet. The festival directors are the
writers Namita
Gokhale and William Dalrymple.
The event is managed by Teamwork Productions, headed by Sanjoy Roy, the
producer and managing director, and Sheuli Sethi, the executive producer.
The inaugural 2006 festival had 18 writers
including Hari Kunzru, William Dalrymple, Shobhaa De and Namita
Gokhale and about 100 visitors, some of
which "appeared to be tourists who had simply got lost," according to
Dalrymple. In 2007 the festival grew in size and featured Salman
Rushdie, Kiran Desai, Suketu Mehta
and Shashi Deshpande, In
2008 the festival continued to expand with about 2,500 attendees and several
well known authors and speakers, such as Ian McEwan, Donna Tartt,
John Berendt, Paul Zacharia, Miranda
Seymour and Nayantara Sahgal among others. The evenings
were enlivened by music and dance performances by Paban Das
Baul, Susheela Raman, Karsh Kale and Anoushka
Shankar.
The 2009 festival had about 12,000 attendees and
over 140 authors/speakers including Vikram Seth, Pico Iyer, Michael
Ondaatje, Simon Schama, Tina Brown, Hanif Kureshi, Hari Kunzru,
Patrick French, Tarun Tejpal, Sashi Tharoor,
Anuragh Mathur, Ashok Vajpayi, Asish Nandy, Pavan K Varma, Rana Dasgupta
etc. with stage and music performances by DJ Cheb i Sabbah, Nitin Sawney, and
Paban Das Baul. The 2010 festival had about 30,000 attendees and 172
authors/speakers, including Geoff Dyer, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Jamaica
Kincaid, Niall Ferguson, Vikram
Chandra and Hemant Shesh.
The 2011 festival had 226 writers including
Nobel-winners J.M. Coetzee and Orhan Pamuk.
Other prominent speakers at the festival were Hemant Shesh, Prasoon Joshi,
Javed Akhtar, Gulzar and Pavan Verma.
The 2012 festival ran into a controversy even
before it began. Among the prominent speakers announced in advance were the
talk show host Oprah Winfrey and author Salman
Rushdie. A section of the
Muslim community asked the organisers to cancel the invitation to Rushdie,
which they declined. The local authorities in Jaipur announced that they had
received intelligence reports that Rushdie might be assassinated if he came to
the festival. In view of this, Rushdie cancelled
his complete tour of India citing possible threats to his life as the primary
reason. He later announced that he had found that the police may have
exaggerated the potential danger, leading to conjectures that this had been
done due to political reasons, in view of the Assembly elections to be held in
UP after a month. Several writers such as Ruchir Joshi, Jeet Thayil, Hari Kunzru and Amitava Kumar protested by reading out from Rushdie’s controversial book
The Satanic Verses, which is banned
in India. In order to avoid aggravating the situation further, the organizers
asked the concerned authors to leave. A proposed video link session between
Rushdie and the Jaipur Literature Festival also had to be cancelled after under
government pressure and protests at the festival site by local leaders of the
Muslim community.
As
mentioned earlier, entry to the JLF is free. Over the years, the format of the
festival has been standardized. Five sessions are conducted simultaneously at venues
such as Durbar Hall, Mughal Tent, Baithak, Front Lawns and Samvad within the
Diggi Palace and its grounds. Each session lasts about an hour, including
interaction with the audience. There is a gap of 15 minutes between sessions,
to enable attendees to move between venues, and an hour’s break for lunch from
1.30 to 2.30. The fist sessions starts at 10 AM and the last ends at 7.30 PM.
This is followed by a stage performance of about an hour and a half, followed
by dinner.
In
true democratic style, there are no reserved seats, even for VIPs. Often, the
hall or tent overflows, and people have to sit on the ground in the aisle or on
the sides. Of course, there are many innovative ways to reserve a seat, if one
has the time and resources. At the 2012 festival, the local police chief and
his spouse were regular attendees. To make sure that they got front seats in
the session of their choice, about half a dozen cops, in plain clothes,
occupied the front seats in all venues at about 9 AM. They would continue to
sit there until the top cop and his wife, along with some close friends and
relatives, arrived. The entourage would confidently walk up to the first row,
where the policemen would vacate the seats for them.
The
logistics for the festival were mind boggling. To handle the 200 plus authors and
several hundred delegates, there was a large team of volunteers, who were stationed
at the airport, railway stations, hotels and the main venue. These were mostly students form local colleges,
who were keen as mustard and did everything on a run. After talking to a couple
of guys in our hotel I found that the entire English Literature class of St
Xaviers College had been given a week off, and drafted for this chore. Their
duties were changed after a day or two, so that they got a chance to attend
some sessions and meet a few authors and celebrities. Among the visitors, the
largest number were school and college students, many from cities as far away
as Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Kolkata. Their enthusiasm was infectious –armed with
autograph books, cameras and voice recorders, they waylaid every author and
speaker as soon as a session got over. Some even spent their pocket money
buying books and stood in line outside the signing tent after every session, to
get them autographed by their favourite author. Looking at them, one could
never imagine that this is the TV generation, hooked to I phones, Facebook and
Twitter, with little time for the written word.
According
to best-selling novelist Chetan Bhagat, the JLF has given India far better PR
worldwide than another initiative of the government to do the same – the Commonwealth
Games. What is striking is the difference between the JLF’s budget – Rs 5
crore, raised through private sponsorship – and that of the Games which cost
Rs. 70,000 crore almost entirely funded by the State. Even after spending so
much money, most of the Games news was related to the scam or the shoddiness of
the work. He lists six reasons for the success of the JLF phenomenon, which the
government would do well to emulate while organizing similar mega events.
First, every festival had a few world renowned authors, which gave the event
enormous credibility. Second, the JLF’s range of sessions made it relevant for
a wide variety of audiences, making them connect to the festival. Third, Jaipur
is a beautiful city, with warm and hospitable residents, enhancing the experience
of the visitor, who hankers to come back. Fourth, was the humility in the organizers’’
approach. The JLF manages to be classy without being snooty. School children
arriving in droves in trains stayed overnight on railway platforms to attend
the festival. Fifth, the festival had more than enough media friendly content, including
with informal chats with authors and visitors, all making for good stories.
Sixth, the execution was flawless, with almost no hiccups. Sessions always start
and end on time, no mean achievement in India. (I attended the talk show
between Barkha Dutt and Oprah Winfrey. The crowd was so huge that the gates had
to be closed to prevent the ones already inside from getting crushed. Anywhere
else there would have been a stampede,
but the JLF managed to get it over, without any mishap. Concluding his piece in
the Times of India of Saturday, January 28, 2012, Bhagat wrote;
“As
a writer, and as an Indian citizen, I feel immensely proud about this
celebration of books. Those who say India is all about Bollywood and cricket
should pay a visit to the JLF. Silly
controversies come and go. Let us rejoice that India, once known as the land of
scholars and knowledge, still has the best literary festival in the world.”
(Published in the USI Journal, 2012)
No comments:
Post a Comment