Margaret Atwood at the Jaipur Literature Festival. All rights reserved.The Jaipur Literature Festival passed off peacefully! The formulaic beginning, used for surcharged political rallies in India, is appropriate for this literary meet because of the ongoing furious debate on the freedom of expression and rising intolerance.
For five days, Jaipur saw a large gathering of writers many of whom have been damned as anti-national subversives by the political activists loyal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The campaign against writers began when dozens of them returned their literary awards in protest against violence against writers. One of them had been killed by a mob. A rationalist thinker met the same fate. Another writer felt so disturbed by threats that he “killed” the writer in himself, declaring that he was abandoning his cherished vocation for ever. Some citizens became the victims of prejudices against a particular religious community or caste. Some vigilante groups started dictating what to eat, what to wear and whom to marry.
