In response to the open letter expressing a set of concerns about the forthcoming Harud Literature Festival, the festival organisers have responded:
We wish to categorically state that the Harud literature festival is not government sponsored. It has been conceived with the intent of creating a platform for free and open debate, discussion and dialogue through contemporary narratives, literary fiction and poetry.
The festival seeks to showcase writing in urdu, kashmiri, dogri and english from the region and other Indian writers. We seek support for the spirit of the festival which is plural, inclusive and supports freedom of speech and expression. [Link]
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 
If this event is not “Govt. Sponsored” why was it called “apolitical” in the first place & , to what extent will be Free Speech & expression allowed ?
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I am happy to see Harud respond, but i am afraid it is a simplistic response and does not answer many questions like:
1. Can the funding sources (All) for the festival be made public?
2. Who has been invited and who left out, both from Kashmir and outside?
3. How was the choice for the two venues made?
4. Who are the festival partners in Kashmir?
5. Will the event be open to general public?
6. If so, will the festival organisers guarantee that those common people who might speak at the event would not be hounded and harassed by any security agency, or indexed for any purposes like denial of travel documents etc?
7. Will any communication between the festival organisers and any government agency be made public? (Permissions must have been sought)
8. Has participation of any government official (even as guests) been sought?
All these questions and many more are relevant because the festival is being held in one of the most contentious and militarised spaces.
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as a kashmiri pundit, may i ask you to give us a reply to some of the questions you are rightly raising for the festival organisers, raising them for yourself too, as a representative of the kashmiris who have made kashmir, as you call it, “the most contentitious and militarised spaces”? i dont know from where the separatists/militants get their funding and support. who are the communities/peoples/countries supporting their evil agendas, creating a situation, which has forced the Indians to deploy so many security forces and the like. it is necessary that you expose those amongst you who are involved in such activities. asha
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Apart from the very pertinent questions raised above on Harud’s response to the letter, it is clear the response of the Harud team does nothing to allay any of the concerns the signatories of the letter have raised.
As queried above, are we to take the ‘categorical’ denial of being state-sponsored at face value, or is the exact level of state involvement, in all aspects, going to be revealed?
Second, it is precisely the non-transparent nature of the festival, including the absence of a list of invitees, as well as the critical question as to the basis on which ‘selection’ of participants was made, that allowed these rumours of mr salman rushdie to be aired. what was the source of the reports, then, which created these rumours? the letter is not concerned with this issue at all. but many of us do have the concern that these rumours on mr rushdie were created precisely so as to arouse reactions from sections in kashmir, which reaction would then be used to present the bogey of ‘islamic intolerance’ in kashmir.
Thus, it is a canard to suggest some people have ‘hijacked’ the ‘sincere effort’ to create a ‘transparent and inclusive’ platform. For, the issue is precisely the intent of the festival given its patently non-transparent nature. As for ‘inclusivity’ the key issue, again is on what basis were participants selected?
As for the fest being a “platform for free speech and expression”, as our letter asked, and as asked in the comment above, will certain political expressions in kashmir, which are the core reality there, be aired in the fest? Will a guarantee of such freedom of expression, without anyone being hounded, be put forth?
Kashmir, patently, isn’t jaipur. Given the nature of realities in kashmir, these questions, if not clearly and unambivalently answered, are cause enough for very many people to be extremely spectical about the proposed festival.
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“supports freedom of speech and expression”
then perhaps the festival organizers will address the issue of political prisoners, ban on texting, prepaid mobile services, interference with emails and facebook, closure of Kashmiri TV channels, house arrest and detention of profreedom leaders, threats to human rights defenders and victims, researchers and journalists, attacks on demonstrations, searches, crackdown, mass arrests, torture, etc etc – and these are only recent and current restrictions, there are 22 years of abuse and repression to account for –
no? didn’t think so
this is just a shoddy attempt to cash in on the interest in Kashmir – watch out, the Indian elite has discovered that Kashmir sells!
who needs state sponsorship, corporate investment is the way to go – the two are indistinguishable in India anyway
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for instance
http://www.risingkashmir.com/news/goi-for-monitoring-internet-usage-in-kashmir-14635.aspx
“GoI for monitoring internet usage in Kashmir”
if any “Harud” organizers are reading this, here’s your chance to stand for freedom of speech – let’s see what you’re made of
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In addition to the valid points raised above my curiosity is about the choice of the venue i.e DPS. My thoughts might be considered that of a conspiracy theorist or am trying to read too much into the subject but the way things work in Kashmir one is forced to look carefully into the Indian mechanizations. Few activities of DPS make me to believe that it is not a completely apolitical educational institution and it activities in itself smell of a bias towards the state (read India). Two incidents I would like to mention:
1. During the last summer uprising DPS was the first educational institution that responded to the govt. call of opening schools. Although that decision was good for educational reasons but the over enthusiasm that DPS displayed makes one a bit cynical. It ran empty buses for a long time.
2. The more important point that comes to my mind is the visit of the US ambassador few months back as the Chief Guest for some function. But what did the Chief Guest speak? That Mr.Omar Abdullah is the elected legitimate representative of Kashmiris and he will talk to him only. Can such an educational institution be considered apolitical in its ideology? It might not have state patronage in material but apparently it is in kind. The other curiosity how many private schools in India have the honor of having US ambassador as the Chief Guest. Unless the administrators of this school are not well connected to a certain political ideology hosting such guests is an improbable task.
Why can’t we have this ‘fest’ for all the three days in Kashmir University? That is the oldest university in Kashmir and would have allowed for a free participation from a more mature audience. Would the kids of DPS make a better audience for a lit-fest or the university students?
Even if the organizers have their own reasons for choosing a school then a Kashmir centric choice would have been Islamia School because that is one of the oldest educational institutions in valley and most of the old established names of Kashmir have been the pass outs of this school. Or even Tyndale Biscoe would have been a better choice.
So everything looks suspicious: the reasons, the list of guests and the choice of venues.
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The Harud Literary Festival organizers have responded by saying that it is not state sponsored. So be it, but their clarification is neither adequate nor substantive. If the festival is not state sponsored there should be nothing that prevents the Festival from coming out and saying categorically that the earlier description of the event as an ‘apolitical’ literary festival was a mistake, an unfortunate lapse of judgement.
If no state agencies are determining the content of the festival, then why the reluctance to declare that this fesitval is being thought of as exactly like the Jaipur Literary Festival, without pre-fixes and qualifiers?
Also, if unlike Jaipur, there are restrictions on entry at events, and common readers, without restriction are disallowed from freely accessing venues and writers, then too, this cannot qualify as a genuine literary festival.
Also, the festival organizers need to guarantee that they can hold the event in a space free of the militarized coercion of the state. Kashmir University, is not such a space at present. its campus contains a paramlitary camp. It cannot be seen as a space guaranteed to protect the freedom of expression. Have the festival organizers paid attention to this fact ? And if so, can they not come up with a suitable, safe venue. Or else, they can demand that the campus be emptied of all military, paramilitary and police presence for the duration of the festival. If the authorities do not agree to this. The festival should not be held at this venue.
Saying that the festival is NOT apolitical does not commit the festival organizers to any political stance, it merely means that they can envisage the free play of all sorts of content (political, apolitical, and widely divergent tendencies and styles).
Ensuring that the event takes place in a space where ordinary people can feel safe and not be overshadowed by a militarized presence is also a reasonable expectation. No literary festival worth its name should have to take place under the shadow of guns.
I hope that the organizers of the envisaged Harud Literary Festival pay careful attention to these points and come up with responses that are sane, reasonable and attentive to the needs and aspirations of the people who would most benefit from the holding of the festival, were it to take place in a free and non-coercive environment.
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As sincere this effort might be, the fact remains thatb it stands on hollow grounds. First and Foremost It it does support ‘Freedom of Expression’ etc, then how about raising the concerns on communication monitoring (SMS, Internet). Or how about the politicial prisoners whose only crime was that they spoke against human rights abuses in Kashmir. Or the funny thing is a Literary festival organized in a School which is not even a Higher Secondary. So how come these children will understand what any ‘literary figure’ is speaking. Or is it just an exercise to show the world that in Kashmir civilization is honored ?
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I am one of its critics while I would have wanted it to happen. The festival would in fact have provided us with a live, mediatized opportunity to examine and critique how cultural and academic spaces have functioned in Kashmir all along. The chief outcome and possibly the purpose of which institutions appears to be depoliticization i.e. the distancing and obscuring of the concerns of the people of Kashmir. That is why they are so evidently dead and deadening in their functioning, in their ritual practices as well as outcome.
However despite this deadness, we do not call for shutting down of the universities, the so called Cultural Academy or the College of Fine Arts and so on and not only because these provide livelihood to many people. Far from it. The whole engagement with these institutions, (despite the suffocation it involves) is to make them actually alive and free. The fact that the state owns them does not make it obligatory upon the individuals involved in them to be subservient to the purposes of the state nor for us to reject them summarily but to stage a takeover through active intellectual engagement.
Since the organizers of Harud have washed their hands off from hosting the festival in near future, it is my request to those who have been active in criticism and protest against it to compensate by arranging for an alternative festival in space/s that are accessible and open to common public and allow for free articulation of the widest range of voices through various literary and artistic media. This is the Autumn when it must happen and it should ideally be dedicated to the students and youth who died last summer without completing their schooling.
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