: “Hum Parwarish-e-loh-o-kalam karte rahenge, Jo dil par guzarti hai raqam karte rahenge” — Faiz Ahmed Faiz : Salman Rushdie dominated the Jaipur Literature Festival. I do not wish to get into the controversy whether banning him was correct or not. I am raising a much more fundamental issue. I have read some of Rushdie’s works and am of the opinion that he is a poor writer, and but for ‘Satanic Verses” would have remained largely unknown. Even ‘Midnight’s Children’ is hardly great literature.
The whole problem with the so called educated Indians of today is that they still suffer from the colonial inferiority complex. So whoever lives in London and New York must be a great writer, while writers living in India are inferior. In a literature festival in India one would have expected serious discussion on literature, particularly indigenous literature. One would have expected serious discussion on Kabir, Premchand, Sharat Chandra, Manto, Ghalib, Faiz, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Subramania Bharti, etc. The whole history of the great Indian literature, rich in its variety, from Valmiki and Vyas to modern times should have been discussed. There could also have been a discussion on foreign writers like Dickens, Shaw, Victor Hugo, Balzac, Flaubert, Upton Sinclair, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Gorki, Pablo Neruda etc.
Instead, the total focus at Jaipur appeared to be Rushdie. Two personalities linked with films were projected as ‘The finest poets’ in India, though to my mind their work is of a very inferior order. This is the low level to which the Jaipur Festival sank. Kabir and Tulsidas are no good because they lived on the ghats of Benares, whereas Rushdie is great because he lives on the ghats of the Thames! This is the mental level of our ‘intellectuals’ and ‘literati’.
Today India is facing massive socio-economic problems. Literature should address these problems. The struggle which Kabir waged against narrow sectarianism, which Sharat Chandra waged against the caste system and women’s oppression, which Faiz waged against despotism, which Subramania Bharti waged for nationalism and women’s emancipation, which Dickens and Gorki waged against exploitation and social injustice – these are the matters which should have been discussed at Jaipur. Instead, Rushdie dominated most of the show.
I am not in favour of religious obscurantism. But neither do I wish to elevate a sub-standard writer into a hero. Today, the Indian people are thirsty for good literature. But where is the Premchand or Sharatchandra or Faiz of today? Where is the Dickens and Victor Hugo of today?
When Maxim Gorki, the great Russian writer used to step onto the streets of Russia he used to be mobbed by the people because he was so much loved by the people as he wrote about their lives and sufferings. Can an Indian writer of today make the same claim? When writers get out of touch with the people and live in a world of their own, it is no wonder that their writings are of no use.
Justice Markandey Katju
Chairman, Press Council of India
