‘At no point did we ask the authors to leave…We were disappointed they did not take us into confidence’

Sanjoy Roy: On January 2,we had decided that we wouldn’t announce Rushdie’s visit. We had planned a festival in Kashmir last September and one irresponsible national newspaper printed an irresponsible article on its front page – ‘Salman Rushdie will visit India’,although we hadn’t invited him. That led to an attack by both the Left and the Right which led to the cancellation of the festival. So we decided to keep Rushdie’s visit to Jaipur quiet. I was in Malaysia when William Dalrymple (the other organiser) called to say Rushdie was hysterical,he wanted to know why we had kept him off the website programme,that he didn’t want to come to India under stealth,he wanted to come as an invitee. We then posted the information on the website. The first to pick it up was a group in Ajmer – they issued a fatwa. The second was Deobandh when the media asked one of the maulanas about it. Thereafter,we were not really in control of events.

Namita Gokhale: Salman Rushdie has been visiting India frequently — he came to Jaipur in 2007,and whenever he comes,the organisers of the trip don’t give advance notice for the very natural hysteria to build up – in a hysterical country like ours if you give provocation,you can’t expect not be provoked back. So it was a collective,accidental,slip- up. R ead an article by historian Faisal: ‘Does Salman Rushdie exist?’ He says the celebrated author has been introduced to a kind of billboard upon which almost any cause can be advertised. It’s like a light cluster: you put on Salman Rushdie and so many different buttons get pushed at the same time and so many latent and dormant issues find voice.

The whole thing became something which is surprising because it was an innocuous literature festival; on the other hand,it was not surprising because there is just something in the energy of Jaipur which draws so much Press,so much attention,that everyone just trapezed in and it became a furious free-for-all.

Charmy Harikrishnan: So announcing Rushdie’s visit beforehand was a mistake? What were the other mistakes? How did the state government for respond on the security issue?

Gokhale : I wouldn’t say this was a mistake,it was a foolish miscalculation on our collective part.

Roy: I t was a mistake in retrospect. We shouldn’t have announced it.

Charmy Harikrishnan: But what were the other mistakes?

Sanjoy Roy: When this controversy started with the Deobandh and when some of the political parties jumped onto the bandwagon,we were told there was a growing resentment and there could be trouble. On January 12,I met the chief minister… We had police – plainclothes police as well as uniformed police at the venue throughout. When the first threat of shoe-throwing came,the police said they wanted everyone to take off their shoes. I said,“You cannot target a community.”

Charmy Harikrishnan: Why did the shoes have to be taken off?

Gokhale: There was a reward for Rs 1 lakh for throwing a shoe at Salman Rushdie.

Roy : And Rs 1.25 lakh for spitting at him. As for security,the idea was to put enough plainclothes police into the venue and to ensure that any troublemaker who had been identified would be stopped. Thereafter,we began to receive alerts about possible threats to Rushdie. These were the controversial alerts that were shared with us on pieces of paper by IB,Home Secretary and Chief Secretary of Rajasthan. Rushdie referred to the “Mumbai underworld” but it wasn’t from the Mumbai underworld. There were four threats: one,they said was from a SIMI guy who had been targeting Rushdie and tracking him who had started moving from towards Jaipur; the second,they said was X person who had links with the underworld and had been given a gun and Rs 3 lakh and was moving towards Rajasthan; the third was again another SIMI kind of outlawed organisation and the fourth was a more hearsay kind of threat,confirmed at a meeting we had with Muslim organisations,with talk of money exchanging hands with certain organisations in Jaipur to create unrest.

On January 17,, the Muslim organisations invited us for a meeting. There were 22 organisations. Four organisations,I think,said throughout the meeting: “We’ll shoot you. Mooh kala kar denge .” We said,we stand by our invitation to Rushdie; we said,you must understand that today you are putting pressure on us,tomorrow Y people will put pressure on us to stop you from speaking,what will you think? They understood,they took it on board,and 12 organisations till the very end stood by their word to be peaceful in whatever they did. It was the other four or five organisations that issued threats,etc. Obviously,we are not detectives to question whether the IB report was true,not true,could be true. We made a call to Delhi to check whether there was a perception of real threat. We were told there was. We explained that to Rushdie and he said,“You know,maybe it makes more sense not to do this.”

Unnirajen Shanker: The initial tweet from Rushdie made it seem like the police was in direct communication with him.

Roy : The only person communicating with the security agencies was me and in the case of the threats,I used to mark and e-mail Rushdie and copy to Rajasthan’s chief secretary. And i t wasn’t the police,it was IB. They used to give me sheets of paper and I used to paraphrase them.

Charmy Harikrishnan: There were reports that the Government was not giving enough security but you never came out to clear the air.

We’ve said from day one that there was enough security. There must have been 500-600 police people. At no point did we feel there was inadequate security. The issue always was – what would happen if there was an incident? The last day of the video conference,the motley groups protesting said,“This is jihad . We will pray at the venue. Any of our young people who will die here today will be shaheed and will be martyrs and go straight to heaven. For us this is a war.”

Coomi Kapoor: You’ve been criticized for what’s considered the high-handed manner of dealing with the four authors who read out from Satanic Verses. Any comment?

Roy : When Hari Kunzru tweeted,“I’m reading from the book”,Salman tweeted saying,“Fantastic.” When I stopped Amitabh Kumar,he tweeted,“Sanjoy stopped me reading from the book.” Salman went hysterical and said,“How can he stop you?“,and I had to call him,etc. Some groups filed a complaint immediately. The police spoke to the two authors. The police resolved the matter by saying they weren’t reading from the actual book but from a piece of paper downloaded from an article on the Net which had a reference to Satanic Verses. Meanwhile,unknown to us,two more authors started reading – Ruchir Joshi and Jeet Thayil. We explained the legal situation to them. It’s all very well for the press to have said it’s not illegal to have read from the book; according to us,the court is going to decide whether it’s legal or not legal. The courts have taken cognizance of the fact that something’s happened.

Charmy Harikrishnan: But why this great fear?

Gokhale: I’m saying this clearly and firmly as a festival director: when somebody organises a festival of such magnitude,if you invite a writer to speak about something,it is understood he or she will speak within that subject. If they had wanted to read Rushdie,all they had to do was tell us and we would have said please go ahead,but please refrain from anything that will get you or the festival into trouble,or from doing something which is not on the agenda and is extremely provocative at this delicate moment. The discipline of speaking on the subject that is given has to be maintained otherwise it would be chaotic if we invited 500 authors to speak on 500 subjects and they spoke on 1,000 other subjects.

Roy: At no point as directors of the festival did we say to them,“Leave.” The police gave them the situation,there was a threat perceived by them.

Gokhale : Almost every other session had a reference to Rushdie. People read out from other works,they lamented his absence,and that was wonderful and commendable,something that we did not discourage.

Charmy Harikrishnan: Did you ask the authors to sign a paper that the festival was not responsible for their actions?

Roy : We called in some legal people and said,how do we make sure these guys are protected? They said immediately get them to write that this was done of their own accord.

Charmy Harikrishnan: To protect the festival or the authors?

Roy: Both. We are giving legal protection to the writers,we continue to do so. Every day we update them,provide them legal recourse,we pay the fees.

Charmy Harikrishnan: The impression is that you cared more about the festival than about the right to freedom of expression.

Gokhale: You’ve got to remember that in the charged atmosphere,it was extremely provocative (reading out Rushdie) and could have created a riot situation. There were people waiting to react and,I’m clear that my role as a festival organiser is to make sure of the safety. There were people above 80 years old,lots of young people — schoolchildren — and the safety of perhaps 100,000 people who had come was very important. That was the hierarchy of responsibility.

If I can move on from here to what I think is the most tragic consequence of this exercise. This is something other writers shared with me — that there are so many other deeply silenced and marginalised voices in India who we have got at JLF with a huge amount of effort. Every year we have a lot of Dalit writers,but this year possibly the most “subversive” sections were those of the prison diaries: Iftikhar Gilani,Anjum Zamarud Habib and Sahil Maqbool read out and talked about the diaries they had written while in prison. I felt personally hurt that there was no media visibility for these voices. It was as though everyone is just so lazy that they cannot look beyond the easiest plug. So why did not anyone report this?

Rakesh Sinha: Do you think you have a permanent problem about security at the festival now?

Roy: Y ou’re absolutely right. I remember saying when this all started that when the dust settles,this festival would have changed forever. And it has,we will have to address the issue of security in more ways than one. Artists,authors,painters are always soft targets. I have never seen a call for a ban against a politician who makes statements against A or B religious community. We are soft targets we know that now.

Rajkamal Jha: It’s been two weeks since the festival; when you look back at the decision by those four individuals to read,as festival directors do you disapprove of their actions?

Gokhale : I was disappointed that they did not take us into confidence and did it in a way where they would have made their point more effectively. We would then have been able to have the video conference with Rushdie as planned. And there would have been no danger to life and limb. It needed more maturity.

Roy: I don’t know if they’d asked us if we’d have said yes or no but I certainly would have thought it through and looked at the legal issues involved and the issue of providing protection to everyone. Finally,for us it’s not about an author whose not there,or about four authors who’ve read. There were thousands of people there. The last day,the Maulanas marked their space,they did Namaaz at four different places in the venue. Some people started pulling chairs from under the kids to use as ammunition. Till 3.30 pm or so,I was in two minds whether to go ahead with the video conference or not. We had been very clear to the police that they couldn’t profile anybody. So when they identified potential troublemakers,people who had tried to disguise themselves or whatever,those people were tagged with a plainclothes policeman who was always with them. There must have been between 120-180 and they spread themselves across the venue. When we arrived,there were 4,000-5,000 people crammed into that lawn,and the issue was even if 169 people had been tackled to the ground by the cops,had that 170 th person had thrown a chair,there would have been a stampede. The local DCP asked the commissioner if they could use force and the commissioner didn’t allow that. I said,“If you use force in a place like this,there’ll be mayhem.” And he said,“If I don’t use force I won’t be able to stop them.” At 3:45 pm,he said use force. That was that.

Rajkamal Jha: On the last day,why did you decide to hold a video conference with Rushdie when you knew the situation was so volatile?

Gokhale: Let me put that in context. We were walking a delicate balance between trying to honour our commitment to Salman Rushdie and the forces on the ground. There was a practical,pragmatic way to make this a safe open space,not a suicidal open place. At the same time,for honouring our commitment,we thought the last day would be the most appropriate time. Let me point out another thing as to why this happened in Jaipur. Jaipur Lit Fest is possibly the only place in India where all the contradictions of India enact themselves without a social hierarchy. It’s an Alice in Wonderland space,where ministers sit on the floor,not as an affectation,but because they have no option. It’s a place where you might have a Dalit writer saying Hinduism is over,and on the other side you have Sex and the City . All these ideas are trying to find some voice,resonance in Jaipur through the writings,dialogues and sessions. The audience is also a cross-section of society,from eve-teasing types who come to see the babes to among the highest intellects in the world and there is always this conflict. Some people say no students should not be allowed there,some people say no socialites should be allowed there. We’ve put all the complexities and contradictions of India on display. Now when some people broke that decorum,that very delicate equilibrium that allows this precious space to exist,they somewhere broke the back of this thing and we’ll have to have spinal surgery to get it back on track.

Amrita Datta: Do you feel manipulated by the Congress government in Rajasthan? They could have given the festival the kind of security which would have prevented all this from happening.

Gokhale : The perception we had on the ground from was that it was a very dangerous place. I treat that festival like a playground for the mind,and in my judgment,there was danger for the people there. And there was manipulation; I felt manipulated by all sorts of people. We were used by the media,by the government,by some of the authors,we were used by everyone.

Roy : Unfortunately,a lot of what we know was by hearsay. Nobody has come and said,“This was the fact. This is the amount of money paid to X person or that person.”

Pratistha Batra,(St. Mark’s School,Janakpuri): Do you believe stopping Rushdie from participating in the festival was an attack on the rights of the writer and the free spread of ideas?

Gokhale : Rushdie was not stopped from coming. We invited him,we stood by the invitation till the end. He’s the one who decided not to come,for his own safety and the safety of the others in the audience. We do have to get him another year,for sure. I don’t know when but I’m an optimist.

Dipanita Nath: When you invite Salman Rushdie again,what measures will you take so that we have no repetition of this year’s fracas?

Gokhale : We’ll wait for the dust to settle. With Rushdie,this trajectory has played itself out before. There were many years he couldn’t come to India and there were years he could come to India quite comfortably,without any provocation. Maybe this debate in the public space will create opportunities for a normal reaction to all this.

Suanshu Khurana: In retrospect,was it a bad decision to announce the Salman Rushdie visit?

Roy Yes,it was a silly decision .

Shailaja Bajpai: Some people say Rushdie himself aggravated an already tense situation by his constant tweeting and talking to the press.

Roy: Rushdie tweeted thrice,once when I stopped Amitava Kumar’s reading,once,when he made the formal statement he sent us,announcing his cancellation and once when he tweeted about the Rajasthan ministers.

Sonali Jain (St. Mark’s School,Janakpuri): Do you think the next time you invite Rushdie,this issue will make its way again centrestage?

Roy : I think it will happen for a while because people have tasted blood. If there was a clear statement from all governments concerned,and if political parties had stayed out of this controversy and said he had a right to come,I don’t think you’d have the kind of play you had. Now of course everyone supports him and say he should have come.

Charmy Harkrishen: You said the festival is a playground for the mind,but what emerged is that those who participate did not know how to respond when there was a threat of physical violence or legal action.

Gokhale: Well,that’s the nature of the beast. When you have such a large festival and so many places to protect,it’s an administrative task first. It’s very hard to ignore the safety of so many people on so many different levels.

Charmy Harikrishnan: There seemed to be a reluctance to openly support Nilanjana Roy’s petition to ‘un’ban Satanic Verses .

Roy : This petition was designed in consultation with Nilanjana Roy and William Dalrymple,specifically. But the festival couldn’t become grounds for a petition like this,it needed to be a private petition. Nilanjana circulated the petition,we as individuals support it a 150 per cent. But we had to be careful. Keeping the situation in mind,when certain organisations circulated photocopies of paragraphs from Satanic Verses ,we stopped them.

Coomi Kapoor: Do you feel JLF has lived up to your expectations,because lot of people say it’s a party more than a literary event?

I’m really proud of what happens in the festival. People say it’s too crowded but it’s the people who come there who make it crowded. Those complaining simply want to keep the other people out. I am proud of the writers who’ve come there,the spread of writers,internationally famed,whimsical or grassroots,the oral traditions that have been showcased. I’m proud of the accumulative work of all these years. This has opened up a literary space. JLF is a literature festival. It’s just a place for people to meet and talk. It’s not a religion and it’s not a political party,it’s just a very crowded place,crowded with people and ideas.

Roy : The parties obviously happen and when you get 75,000 unique visitors,you’ll have hopefully 75,000 parties in the evening.

Priyanka Rathi: Was the Rushdie controversy good for JLF ?

Gokhale : Some people say any publicity is good publicity. I personally believe that the only publicity which lasts and has value is word-of-mouth. People come,enjoy themselves,and then bring more committed readers with them the next year.

Priyanka Rathi: Do you think the Rushdie controversy sidelined the event and other authors present there?

Gokhale: Yes,I do feel saddened that the other authors didn’t get the Press and showcasing.

Roy : But every event was packed to capacity.

Charmy Harikrishnan: Finally,do you think JLF failed to stand up for Rushdie?

Gokhale: Not at all. We stood up for Rushdie every way we could,that was in the capacity of the festival.

Roy : And Rushdie agrees.

Transcribed by Shantanu David