Friday, January 20, 2012

Jaipur Literary Festival

If you are fond of literature then phrase like literary festival will indeed leave you drooling.
But there is a hitch in the context of present literary scenario.
When yours truly was being tutored, like every one else, the common observation was that literature if the mirror of the society.
Now what happened in the mean while?
Why is literature, a literary festival in particular, present the all inclusive society?
Some time around the middle of the last century the rebellious, so called freedom loving, socialist, so called liberal and Marxist oriented group misappropriated literature scene.
Just like the intellectual space in country called India.
The situation remains the same.
The biggest loser are the Muslims.
If you do not have atheistic tendencies then your art and creativity do not make a blip on the radar of Indian literary scene.
The same infamous writer who has brought the Jaipur Literary Festival to the fore had trashed the Indian vernacular literature.
And then everybody forgot about that.
Where are those people who should have been hurt - or at least who should have been awaken by such rabid, rude and condescending remarks?
Contraction of social, economic, cultural and political space of Muslims is tragedy of gigantic proportions and their marginalization at a literary festival is just part of a big pattern, however unpleasant, but why this marginalization of other literary streams. Does only leftist oriented, rebellious, morality busting literature count?