Jaipur Literature Festival: Rushdie row turns ugly, suspense over video conference

23 Jan, (TOI) JAIPUR: The row over Salman Rushdie deepened on Monday with five complaints being filed against the four authors who read out passages from his banned “Satanic Verses” at the literature festival and its organisers, as suspense grew whether his video address will take place on Tuesday.

As the controversy over the 65-year-old India-born author continued to dog the festival for the fourth day, a festival organiser Sanjoy K Roy said the video address will go ahead as scheduled at 3.45pm on Tuesday.

“We are figuring out the best way to do that. We are trying to ensure that we are able to go ahead in a way that does not jeopardise or put anyone at risk,” he told reporters.

Roy said some clarifications sought by police to their letter have been given in a second communication.

He claimed that organisers have not been told by police that permission would be required for the video link.

A senior government official said on Monday night that police have sought some details from the organisers relating to Rushdie’s video conferencing and no decision was taken from the government’s side in this matter so far. He said the organisers will have to take permission.

The four complaints before local courts in Jaipur and one in Ajmer, all in Rajasthan, sought directions to police to lodge FIRs against the persons named and to probe the matter, police sources and human rights activist Kavita Srivastava said.

Those named in the complaints were authors Hari Kunzru, Amitava Kumar, Jeet Thayil and Ruchir Joshi and the three organisers-Namita Gokhale, William Dalrymple and Sanjoy Roy.

Abdul Latif in his capacity as secretary of All India Milli Council and Muslim Mahasabha are among those who filed the complaints, one of them which is likely come up in court on Tuesday.

According to Kavita, a member belonging to BJP minorities cell is among the complainants.

The complaint in Ajmer was lodged by Muzaffar Bharti, who represents a local group, in his personal capacity.

Rushdie’s poetic novels find mention at Jaipur fest session

Meanwhile, a session pitting poetry against other genres of writing on Monday saw a reference to poetic novels of the controversial author.

Poetry contains everything like fiction, drama and story and there is nothing which can not be there in poems, but it does not mean that it is superior as compared to short stories, feels poet K Satchidanandan.

“There is difference yet interconnection between short stories and poem. The main difference between the both is of style. Poetry is a rhythmic presentation and we can say many more things in just four lines,” he said at the session ‘Amne Samne: Kavita and Kahani’.

“What poem cannot have… it can contain everything - story, drama, fiction and others. There is no element of story which cannot be in poem. In fact, poetry is used as a medium to express stories too,” he said while citing the examples of Mahabharata and Ramayana.

However, he said, he was not trying to establish that poetry is superior as compared to short stories.

Satchidanandan just for a reference also mentioned work (non-controversial) of Rushdie in context of ‘poetry in novels’ and not beyond this.

Another poet-critic Ashok Vajpeyi said that stories cannot do what poems can.

He also spoke on poetic elements in short stories. Vajpeyi held institutions responsible for present state of poetry.

“Schools, colleges and other institutions which were supposed to make efforts to keep the verse alive did not make efforts in this direction,” he said.

“There is no conflict between short stories and poetry as far as Kashmiri literature is concerned,” writer and translator Neerja Mathoo of Kashmir said.

News Gathered by India News

Posted by Taani on Monday, January 23rd, 2012. Filed under India News, World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.