TMC MP Mahua Moitra. (Twitter/@MahuaMoitra)The second day of the Khushwant Singh Literary Festival (KSLF) began on a profound note, with the first half of the morning focused on the environment, politics of hate, and the power of music. ‘The Tiger of the Sunderbans’ was the opening session of the ongoing three-day festival at the Kasauli Club, with author and BBC broadcaster Paul Waters in conversation with Amitav Ghosh, with the conversation resonating the theme of the festival, ‘The Climate of Change: Still sprightly @75?’. “I am a mud person, tied to the Sunderbans. I am also an urban person, who loves life, food, taste, textures and I believe we are strong environmentalists, and my writing reflects my deep affinity with nature, the present planetary crisis of climate change, the weaponization of nature, the catastrophic events which have made species disappear, the hurricanes which devastated the Sunderbans, New York…,” Ghosh spoke at length to Walters about the concerns of his work.
Mahua Moitra, member of Parliament and Revati Laul, activist and author were in conversation with Samar Harlankar, in a session aptly titled, ‘Cry, The Beloved Country’, where they attempted to bring the spotlight on the Bilkis Bano gangrape of 2002, and how the case not only speaks volumes of the state of the country, but also the mindset of the current citizens of India, a cause of concern. Eleven men who were sentenced to life imprisonment in the Bilkis Bano gangrape case were released from Godhra sub-jail on August 15, after a panel set up by the Gujarat government approved their application for remission of the sentence. The remission application was considered as the convicts had completed 14 years in jail and in considered were factors such as age, behaviour in prison, age etc. Bilkis, who was five months pregnant then, was brutally gang-raped during the communal violence following the Godhra train-burning incident. “The law of the land allowed these men to walk free, but the people of this land; political workers etc celebrated these men with tilaks, ladoos, and garlands. This not only speaks volumes of the state of the country but also the mindset of the current citizens of India, which to me is far more worrying. So, it is not only about the crime, it is not the fact that they are out, we can put that in the hands of the judiciary and executive but what happened after is the malice prevalent here. And that is more worrying than the amendments to the law and how revision committees should be set up for the law,” said Moitra.
Laul, the author of ‘The Anatomy of Hate’, which investigates mass violence in India, and Gujarat 2002 specifically, spoke about her work as an activist and how our silence on the Bilkis case, in contrast with the Nirbhaya case which happened 10 years ago where a middle-class Hindu woman was raped in Delhi, tells us that we live in two different countries. “And the Bilkis case is about those two different countries. And as a political watcher and activist, I ask myself, ‘Do I want to be a part of these two countries?” said Laul.
“The schizophrenic society that we are, the silence and the fantasies of hate that we have and the things we are playing through the attackers. We are part of this society too. The politics we are practicing, is a performance of hate and we are all participating in that. And if we want to break that, then we must put an end to the radicalism and fascism of every day,” said Moitra.
Shifting focus from climate change and the politics of hate to music was the effervescent Usha Uthup, who had the audience on its feet, and singing along, as she shared the five-decade journey of her music and being with Malavika Sangghvi, who spoke to the singer about Usha’s biography ‘The Queen of Indian Pop.’ The book, originally written in Hindi by author Vikas Kumar Jha, has been translated by the writer’s daughter Srishti Jha, who was part of the session.