Bonfire of sanity in Jaipur

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The five-day Jaipur Literature Festival closed on a sad, angry and distressing note on Tuesday when even the image of Salman Rushdie, the author of the Booker of Bookers Midnight’s Children, The Satanic Verses and other novels, was not allowed to appear on a video screen because of the fear of violence.

The cancellation brought to mind the intolerance of medieval times and the 1497 AD burning of objects, including books and art, by the Dominican priest Savonarola in Florence, an incident that became infamous as the Bonfire of the Vanities.

Rushdie, 65, described the cancellation as “awful”, and tweeted: “Threat of violence by Muslim groups stifled free speech today. In a true democracy all get to speak, not just the ones making threats.”

A few minutes past 3.45 pm, the scheduled time for Rushdie’s session via video link, Hotel Diggi Palace owner Ram Pratap Singh came on stage to tell the packed front lawn that he had pulled the plug. Singh said he had taken this decision on the advice of the Rajasthan police.

“A large number of people who are averse to this video link, who are actually already inside the property and a lot of them have gathered in and around this property and are marching towards us, have threatened violence against this video link,” he said and added, “This is unfortunate but necessary to avoid harm to this property, to all of you people, to my children.”

Amidst booing, Singh handed over the mike to Sanjoy Roy, one of the directors of the litfest. The usually beaming faces of the three directors — the other two are authors William Dalrymple and Namita Gokhale — were ashen.

Roy distanced himself and other litfest organisers from the decision to cancel: “This is not a decision that we can support. We have been pushed to the wall... It is with extreme regret that after three weeks of the unfolding of this fairly idiotic situation, we are having to step down in a fight for the freedom of expression, for the freedom to write, for the freedom to be able to tell our stories.”

He said that though he and others had been in deliberations with the leaders of the protesting organisations, “they said the issue was not about him (Rushdie) being here in person, but even seeing his face for them was intolerable”.

Roy added, “It is very, very sad that we are having to close what has been billed as one of the best festivals in the world in this way. All of us feel hurt, disgraced.”

He broke down before he could finish and left the stage.
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