It is sad that a literature festival that was to be held in Srinagar later this month has been indefinitely postponed. What is even sadder is that while announcing its postponement on HarudLitFest.org, the organisers of the Harud Literature Festival (the same team that puts up the acclaimed Jaipur Literature Festival) have sought to blame those who signed an “open letter” expressing a set of concerns about the festival. The statement reads, “A few people who began the movement to boycott the festival have no qualms in speaking on and about Kashmir across international forums, but have refused to allow other voices, including writers, poets and theatre people from the Valley and across India to enjoy the right to express themselves at the Harud festival.”
As one of the over two hundred signatories of the open letter posted on Kafila.org, I am dismayed at the deliberate and disingenuous misrepresentation of the open letter as a “movement to boycott” What does such deliberate misrepresentation of dissent by the organisers of a literature festival say about them, their honesty and intent?
Two news reports appeared on 28 July 2011. One, by Agence France-Presse, quoted organiser Namita Gokhale as saying, “it will be an apolitical dialogue concerning literature”. The other report, by Randeep Singh Nandal in The Times of India, datelined Srinagar, did not quote anyone, and claimed: “There is speculation that Salman Rushdie might drop by…”
The term “apolitical” offended Kashmiris, who were seen objecting to it widely on Facebook and Twitter. Some of these were also aghast with the idea of Salman Rushdie, who they consider a blasphemer against Islam, sitting on a stage in Srinagar. Even though some of those named in these and subsequent news reports had told the festival organisers even before the news was in the papers that they would not be able to attend, their names were falsely put out in the media. They were thus forced to publicly state they would not attend a lit-fest termed “apolitical”.
Kashmir is a place where people live under the shadow of the gun, their political grievances against the Indian state silenced with draconian laws, criminalisation of dissent and heavy militarisation. You can get two years in jail without charge for a Facebook status update, a pamphlet, a mass gathering, a call for strike. Around the time the Harud controversy was gaining momentum, the Jammu and Kashmir Police beat up over several hours a photojournalist, allegedly because they didn’t like his work on the Al-Jazeera website.
Now, a group of people from the Indian capital decide to go to the place described above, to hold a literary festival, and announce that the festival would be “apolitical”. Were Kashmiri writers and journalists, including some acclaimed ones, wrong in feeling offended?
On 12 August 2011, Namita Gokhale was quoted as saying in the London-based newspaper The Guardian (no relation to this publication), “There was perhaps some misinterpretation of my use of the word ‘apolitical’.” She chose not to withdraw the word. If by apolitical she meant non-partisan, the choice of venues, Delhi Public School’s Srinagar franchise and the Kashmir University, was not seen as non-partisan in Srinagar. If your intent is to be neutral in a conflict zone, surely, you must attempt to be seen to be neutral?
he open letter, signed initially by fourteen people, including me, was published on 25 August. It said, “Our concerns are also heightened by reports that the festival is sought to be denoted as being an ‘apolitical’ event, that, yet, people will be free to speak what they want and that no one has the right to deny Kashmiris a chance to listen to writers. Beyond the absurdity of asserting that art and literature has nothing to do with politics, our issue is precisely that people are not allowed to speak their minds in Kashmir.” The open letter did not use the word boycott, did not urge anyone to not attend it, did not ask for it to be cancelled. It did say, “We would firmly support the idea of a literary/artistic festival in Kashmir if we were convinced that its organising was wholly free from state interference and designs, and was not meant to give legitimacy to a brutal, repressive regime.”
Two days later, their response on Kafila.org said, “We wish to categorically state that the Harud literature festival is not government sponsored.” It did not withdraw the word ‘apolitical’. An expanded version of this 27 July release, sent to the media, mentioned false rumours spread by a Facebook group about Rushdie coming to attend. Why did it put the blame of the Rushdie rumour on Kashmiris and not on The Times of India, and on themselves for choosing to not deny the rumour for a whole month?
Then, suddenly, on 29 August they announced indefinite postponement of the festival, in a dishonest release that blamed the signatories of the open letter for being against free speech! It also cited security threats emanating from that Facebook page with nearly 5,000 ordinary Kashmiris supporting the boycott call on account of Rushdie’s rumoured attendance.
Given that so many Kashmiris have expressed reservations about the festival’s intent, including many Kashmiri writers and journalists, even young, aspiring, as yet-unpublished ones, it is surprising that we are hearing patronising comments about how Kashmiris have been ‘denied an opportunity’. It is high time Kashmiris started their own literary festival, something they have tried to do before but were not allowed to by the state government. They should do it in Delhi or Jaipur, giving Indian writers an opportunity to learn what it means to be political.
(First published in The Sunday Guardian, Delhi, and The Friday Times, Lahore.)
From Kafila archives:
- Harud Literary Festival: The Misrepresentation Continues
- Apoorvanand: Killing poetry and other possibilities of life
- Hypocrisy in Any Season: Mridu Rai responds to Rahul Pandita
- An Open Letter on the ‘Harud’ Literary Festival
- A Response from the Harud Literary Festival
- Harud Literature Festival ‘Postponed’
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 
i am surprised at shivam vij’s reply to the decision of the prganisers to postpone the event.. first he supports people who give all sorts of pessimistic, separatistic arguments criticising the holding of the “apolitical” festival and now he blames those who postponed it due to the real politicisation of the evnt by particular political groups of separatists and their supporters and also foriegn intellectuals with a hidden agenda. Not all kashmiris find kashmir “a brutal repressive regime”, where “people living under the shadow of the gun”. they are NOT constantly uttering “political grievances against the state” but are surely against calling anyone a “blasphemer of Islam” and not allowing him to speak out too?
the open letter signitaries seem to be totally confused. now that they have spoilt the whole atmosphere, by listening and supporting the separatist agenda, they dont seem to have the courage to stick to their “one-sided, exaggerated and partially false” position by calling the decision to postpone a “deliberate and disingenuous misrepresentation of the open letter as a “movement to boycott”,. asha
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It is the Harud LitFest organisers and their ‘advisors’ who have shown how much they value free speech by first assigning limites to the proposed fest (“apolitical”), then cancelling the fest because they can’t handle dissent, then making false accusations and personal attacks on the dissenting voices.
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i can only reiterate the fact that as a “normal” kashmiri, neither belonging to the organisers nor to the signitaries of the “open letter”, but just as one who wants her homeland to become normal again and who wants to visit her homeland and take active part in the kashmiriyat culture of her homeland, i am utterly distressed that now i cannot fulfill that wish for who knows how long… asha kachru
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it is ridiculous to see the literary festival organisers cancelling the program, just because they cant digest dissent and then another sad affair is to see the comment by miss asha when she writes,”Not all kashmiris find kashmir “a brutal repressive regime”, where “people living under the shadow of the gun”…..i am sure she is talking about kashmiris living outside kashmir for past so many years.
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nazia dear, what is really sad is to read your words that kashmiris living outside kashmir for past so many years are not aware of what is happening in the valley. how ignorant can those promoting the separatism in the valley really be!? let me give you a few examples of my own experiences during my visit last year to J&K. in the valley, in june, when the stone throwing was in high peak. I spoke to autorikshaw and shikara wallas, to poor muslim.women, to representatives of KP’s who did not leave the valley, to security personnel, to policewalls, to politicians and to the J&K civil society members. except for the last one,here is what the rest said respectively: “geelani has his children studying in USA. his regular bandhs are a nuisance to us. we cant afford missing our daily earnings, how can our children study?”,rajbegum asked me for help and said “Yiman peyin Trath” for her neighbors, who did not support her in need. sanjay tickoo of KPSS said, he had organised a big Dusserah festival in 2009 and some few thousands came in the center of the city and he praised the role of women (both Hindu and Muslim) in bringing peaceful initiatives in troubled times. the rajasthani security force guy in the Ganeshtemple in the center of the city srinagar said “i prefer being in rest of India than this beautiful place here”, when i asked him how he feels there.the policeman in front of the postoffice cursed and said “let these beautiful chinaar trees all burn, what use are they to me? my son after studying hard for so many years, has no job and has become a psychological case. these netas and the businessmen are corrupt and misuse all the resources sent from the central govt for us” tarigami of cpi(m) thanked me for having spoken to the various peoples e.g. the civil society Khurram Parvez (he is the only one who spoke openly for Pakistan and against India) etc.. tarigami said we have to proceed further, we dont have to forget the past and neither repeat the mistakes done.but learn to proceed further” so nazia, you understand what I mean? asha kachru,
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Every literary festival — anywhere in the world — makes a political statement of sorts by the people it chooses to invite,the people it chooses to deliberately leave out, the topics it chooses to address and the topics it deliberately leaves out. Controversies surrounding literary festivals are not new either; a few months back, there was one surrounding the Dubai literary festival.
Rather than criticize the Harud festival for its failure to live up to some abstract and impossible ideal, I would rather you criticize it for its failure to be honest about its intentions. It is clear that the organizers of the festival had a particular political agenda to pursue. They may deny it but I can draw no other conclusion from their decision to hold a literary festival in an area which has been a conflict zone for the last 20 years.
Of course, they are within their rights to organize a literary festival in whatever place they want. But they should be honest about their intentions. In Kashmir — and if you will, Nagaland, Manipur and similar places — this is very essential.
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do you mean to say that in a conflict zone no attempts should be made to bring normalcy like situation?
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Ms. Asha Kachru, I take serious offence at your attempt to put words in my mouth, to attribute statements to me, insidiously in the form of questions, that I have not made. Please do not take the comments space on Kafila for granted. I am not bound to approve your comments as per our comments policy: http://kafila.org/about/
best
shivam
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Shivam — The question might have been addressed to me. If so, the first sentence of your response will do for me too.
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Oops, in that case I withdraw my comment
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This thread is closed.
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