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Business News/ Mint-lounge / Features/  “Arundhati Roy case important, but no more or less than those of other Indian writers”
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“Arundhati Roy case important, but no more or less than those of other Indian writers”

Why Pankaj Mishra's arguments in 'The Guardian' criticising writers for not speaking up for Roy at the Jaipur lit fest are flawed

Arundhati Roy. Photo: Sanjeev Verma/HTPremium
Arundhati Roy. Photo: Sanjeev Verma/HT

The Jaipur Literature Festival ended on 25 January with its customary debate, which is usually about a topic of current concern. The theme this year was whether freedom of speech is absolute. The same day, novelist and activist Arundhati Roy faced contempt charges at a court in Nagpur. Three Indian writers—Pankaj Mishra, Saba Naqvi and Omair Ahmed—expressed surprise and disappointment that writers assembled in Jaipur did not speak out for Roy.

Roy faces the contempt charge for a spirited—and entirely justified—article she wrote, defending a disabled writer, G.N. Saibaba, who teaches at Delhi University, whose bail application was denied by a court. Saibaba has been accused of links with Naxalites, an extreme left group. Roy is hardly alone in criticizing Saibaba’s detention; former Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju has publicly expressed his concern too. Roy asks, indignantly, that if politically well-connected individuals accused of murders can be granted bail, why couldn’t Saibaba?

However, a judge in Nagpur didn’t like Roy’s tone. Declaring that India is a tolerant country, he issued the contempt notice on Roy, which is curious and puzzling, if not ironic.

In his article in The Guardian, Mishra implied that writers in Jaipur didn’t defend Roy; that their commitment to free speech was limited; and that corporate sponsorship may have influenced the assembled writers.

Those implications aren’t fair. I was there.

At a session on the final day, novelist and critic Nilanjana Roy spoke along with Hindi writers Uday Prakash and Ashok Vajpeyi (who have both returned their national awards protesting the growing climate of intolerance in India). She raised the litigation threats Arundhati Roy faces, pointing out the broader principle of how Indian laws interfere with free expression—a point other writers made in different sessions too. Later that afternoon, Roy held a session on the value of poetry, where Vajpeyi, the Punjabi poet Nirupama Dutt and I read poems of Palestinian poet Ashraf Fayadh, who faced the death penalty in Saudi Arabia over blasphemy charges (a punishment since “reduced" to eight years in prison and 800 lashes). In another session I moderated, I joined panelists in condemning the attacks on freedom of expression during the Emergency of 1975-77—the topic of the session—and the current political climate in India.

Much of the concern of the critics, including Mishra, is focused on what happened at the final debate.

Speaking for the motion—that free speech is absolute—were the Tamil writer P. Sivakami; the Delhi state minister Kapil Mishra (who showed remarkable talent in speaking louder than a section of the crowd trying to drown his voice); senior journalist Madhu Trehan; and myself.

Speaking against the motion were actor Anupam Kher, who has lately wrapped himself in nationalistic colours and led a crusade against the dissenting writers who are returning their awards; author and diplomat-turned-politician Pavan Varma; and public relations professional Suhel Seth, a frequent feature in debates on Indian television.

Kher seemed to think that the stage was a wrestling arena and displayed his muscles first, to the applause of a vociferous section of the crowd. Then he egged on that section which loudly chanted “Modi, Modi," referring to the Indian prime minister, and made arguments which were at best non sequiturs.

Kher and his teammates then made the intriguing claim that India was the freest country in the world. In response, I asked them to go to Dharwad in Karnataka and visit the family of the scholar and academic M.M. Kalburgi, and tell them what he just told us. Last August, unknown assailants murdered Kalburgi, who wrote critically against Hindu nationalism. Or, I suggested, they could go to meet the families of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar or Marxist writer Govind Pansare, who too have been murdered in recent years, and whose killers have not yet been apprehended. I also mentioned the cases of the young woman arrested for liking a particular Facebook post and some of the laws that restrict freedoms in India. I also urged the audience not to trust any of the politicians on the stage. They must safeguard free speech, which was their right, and not a privilege the government had granted them.

I didn’t mention Arundhati Roy not because anybody had told me or my teammates not to do so, but because I didn’t mention many other threats—by defamation and criminal laws and by mobs—which threaten and intimidate writers in India. It would have been ridiculous if any of the sponsors had told any of the debaters what they could or could not speak. But that didn’t happen.

Five days later, on 30 January (the day Mohandas Gandhi was assassinated) I was in Dandi, the coastal town where in 1930 Gandhi defied the colonial salt tax. Here, the academic Ganesh N. Devy had organized the Sarva Bhasha Samwad (Dialogue of All Languages), which drew more than 500 authors from Goa, Gujarat, Karnataka and Maharashtra, including members of the families of Dabholkar, Kalburgi and Pansare, along with historian and author Rajmohan Gandhi, Mohandas Gandhi’s grandson.

The assembled authors pledged to defend freedoms and fight intolerance. They didn’t single out Roy either, but that didn’t mean they would not defend her. I know; I was proud to be part of the group.

Arundhati Roy matters, of course; but no single case should become the litmus test for an entire country. The fight to defend freedom of expression never ends, and Roy’s case is just as important as the many other struggles Indian writers are fighting—no more, no less.

Salil Tripathi is the Chair of PEN International’s Writers-in-Prison Committee. His most recent book is Detours: Songs of the Open Road. He is also the author of Offence: The Hindu Case (2009) and The Colonel Who Would Not Repent: The Bangladesh War and its Unquiet Legacy (2014).

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Published: 05 Feb 2016, 02:04 PM IST
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