In defence of litfests: Reasons Amitav Ghosh gets it wrong

Weeks after the Jaipur Litfest, the reverberations of the Salman Rushdie controversy continue to be felt in the literary world. The most recent is author Amitav Ghosh’s brilliant and restrained post on his blog, titled Festivals and Freedom, where he questions the very logic and rationale of literary festivals, which he suggests have become part and parcel of "the three-ring circus of the tamasha culture.""But the controversy also raises questions about another issue that touches directly upon writing: this is the way in which literature is coming to be embedded within a wider culture of public spectacles and performances. This process, which got under way almost imperceptibly, has now achieved a momentum where it seems to be overtaking, and indeed overwhelming, writing itself as the primary end of a life in letters," Ghosh writes.He argues that writers should not insert themselves between the reader and their text. A book has its own life and logic. Since the very nature of the literary art is to question and hence create friction, any confrontation between a writer and his audience poses a danger to the writer who may be overwhelmed – and in certain instances influenced – by the larger public's response, especially in combustible societies like in India. Ghosh writes:

Through the last century the relationship between readers and writers was largely impersonal.…This was I think one of the reasons why writers were able to take greater risks in hurling defiance at society at large. The situation has changed dramatically in recent years. The Internet, as I have good reason to know, has made it possible to subject writers to great pressure through mass-mailing campaigns. Face-to-face encounters add yet another dimension to this: to be called upon constantly to provide answers is inevitably to become answerable. If this process continues unchecked its impact on the freedom of thought and expression may be greater than any explicit policy of repression.

Ghosh's argument is compelling and deserve serious consideration – in particular, his criticism of the various forms of marketing, promotion and media that have become the norm these days. However there are other aspects of his critique that require rebuttal.One, not everyone is an Amitav Ghosh. To his credit, Ghosh does not attend any literary festival and therefore practices what he preaches. Though he declined many of my invitations to attend the Kovalam Literary Festival, his wife Deborah Baker attended the festival and read excerpts of her new and widely acclaimed book The Convert.[caption id="attachment_208409" align="alignleft" width="380" caption="Indian author Amitav Ghosh poses with his book 'Sea of Poppies' . Reuters"][/caption]Ghosh, however, has been on book tours which are shorter versions of festivals and happily signed copies of his books. I have attended most of his book launches in New Delhi. About 300 copies of Rivers of Smoke sold at his reading at The Aman, New Delhi. His interactions with the audience have been most interesting, witty and erudite – allowing his audience to form an impression of him and his thoughts outside that of his writings. It's no secret that booklovers idolise revered authors such as Ghosh just as moviegoers do so with Aamir Khan.Not all writers have the good fortune like him to be taken on book tours and feted across India at the the publishers' expense. Lit fests strive to fill that gap by allowing less fortunate writers to enjoy the arclights of transitory fame. It also allows the lesser known writer to take his defiance directly to his audience – as opposed to adopting Ghosh’s shoot-and-scoot policy (to hurl defiance and vanish from the scene). A huge phalanx of Indian writers have done that, and rightly so. The spread and expansion of regional literature owes a great deal to the proliferation of these culture fests.Two, there is nothing wrong with popular culture. 'Cripollywood' is the snide word that Ghosh creates to underline the country’s fascination with cricket, politics and Bollywood. It is easy enough to deride this national obsession, but for huge numbers of people who do not have the benefit “of living in a world of books” or studying in St Xaviers, Presidency or St Stephen’s, engaging with politics, cricket and popular cinema is part of their identity as Indians.It is far too easy to live in that rarefied transnational, jetsetting literary world and look down upon the frail and fancy engagements of Indians. By aligning with or trying to latch on to the Cripollywood gravy train, has the Jaipur Litfest or other festivals committed a grave sin? Definitely not. Why can’t a book or a writer be part of popular discourse or for that matter a Times of India anchor story? Why can’t Gulzar and Pavan Varma share the same stage as they did in JLF? In such a scenario, neither writing nor cinema is belittled.Continues on the next pageThree, writing is not sacred. Amitav Ghosh is being a cultural snob when he tries to appropriate writing as a sacred art. This is possible only withing the cloistered realm of certain writers of repute who can be fashionably reclusive since they don’t need to care a damn as their advances are safe. Part of the hidden grouse that Amitav betrays is that writing in India has been appropriated by a commercially minded set of people including mall writers (Chetan Bhagat, etc) and event organisers (Sanjoy Roy). Though it is not Amitav’s argument or position, he should realise that the Indian literary scene is no longer a serene, cloistered world of a select few, drawn mostly from the upper classes and educated in either Doon or St Stephen’s, who wrote back to India from the comforting confines of chalets in the American or European suburbs.Today, it is not just the writing that has changed. Writers have too. Now we have Dalit poets reading to an audience of about 3,000 people in lit fests and taking their questions. Surely, this is to be celebrated.Four, writers and writing deserves to be valued. For a long time, writers and writing received no value or recognition in India – and still receive less than is their due. Even newspapers which sell over a million copies pay only Rs 1,000 to a writer called on to hold forth on the GDP and its relation to the mid day meal scheme or for that matter on Salman Rushdie’s drooping eyelids. In the past, writers often ended up as part time sub editors in newspapers (as many still do today). If you are an author, you are quite likely to get a call from a publisher in Daryaganj who will want you to “proof” his manuscript for Rs 5 a page. This is the terrible, beggarly world of Indian writing which most of us unknown writers have to struggle through.Even the better-known authors don't fare as well as their peers in other fields. A part time stand-up who talks in double-entendre is better-known and celebrated than an Indian writer reviewed by Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times. A Booker Prize winner is often called on to inaugurate a soup kitchen or the office of a Shapurjat NGO since he does not have to be paid anything.Lit fests are changing all that by bringing writing and books into the national discourse and awarding glamour and real value to writing. While the Jnanpith award is still worth only Rs 7 lakh, the Jaipur litfest award is $50,000. Unless such “tamashas” are held over and over again — protests staged and rebutted, arguments made and defeated, authors questioned and maybe overwhelmed, cinema and writing closely linked — literature and writing will not get anywhere in India, a country where a literary novel sells only 2,000 copies. So authors must be dragged out of the cloistered world of letters and made to face the music.To be heard and seen and bought, is also the right of lowly writers who did not emigrate to make their money in the portals of the Ivy league. And literary festivals play a major role in helping us do just that. For us, any tamasha will do.Binoo K John conducts the Kovalam Literary Festival and is author most recently of The Last Song of Savio de Souza.