[Reader-list] Statement for Reflection on Jaipur Literature Festival/Please endorse

[Prakash K Ray]

*Incest is a reality but perhaps all civilizations have been wary of it.*

*Jaipur Literature Festival that began as civil society initiative has
developed into a DSC Limited sponsored festival of literature for the last
five years. It is time one ponders over the public relations exercise and
the facade of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of companies that
sponsor and partner for this festival. If one examines the credentials of
some of the sponsors of the festival briefly, it presents a disturbing
picture:*

   - *In the inspection of scam ridden Commonwealth Games,Central Vigilance
   Commission (CVC) had observed that DSC Limited as having been awarded 23%
   higher rates*
   - *Rio Tinto Group, the world’s third- largest mining company has been
   deemed guilty of collusion with fascist and racist regimes and faces
   allegations of human, labour and environmental rights violations around the
   world and over decades*
   - *Shell Oil Company, the largest energy company and the second-largest
   company in the world in terms of revenues has been deemed responsible for
   the death of Ken Saro Wiwa, the Nigerian author and environmental activist
   *

*Is it possible for the delegates at the festival to give voice to their
moral outrage and support the message of National Union of Ogoni Students,
USA dated 4th January, 2011 issued to mark the 18thanniversary of the UN
declaration of the “year of the indigenous peoples” appealing to the Dutch
parliament to break its silence by making the Shell Oil Company liable for
the exploitation of Ogoni people, their environmental and its role in the
destabilization of Niger Delta communities and its demand that the Shell Oil
be expelled from Nigeria?*

*Isn’t literature interested in truth? Or does it not seek opportunities to
allow itself to be co-opted by powers of all ilks so that they can
facilitate the maintenance of that power?*

*Is literature interested only in lies that create a make belief reality?*

*If writers at the festival believe that a better life is possible and
should be achieved, it would be germane for them to ponder how being
complicit in promoting status quo is contrary to their beliefs?*

*Is it not possible that a literature festival supported by unethical and
immoral business enterprises is an exercise aimed at ‘clinical manipulation’
masquerading as a feel good event akin to be an ‘act of hypnosis’?*

*Does this festival and its participants have the emotional and intellectual
depth to fathom the cognitive ramifications of 'full spectrum dominance'
ideology on the present and future generations?*

*The writers at the festival must ponder over: what is the immoral
equivalent of taking sponsorship from the killers Ken Saro Wiwa, the
Nigerian author and environmental activist who was posthumously elected to
the United Nations Environment Programme's, Global 500 Roll of Honour for
advancing environmental protection? Saro Wiwa said in his closing statement
to the Nigerian Military appointed tribunal that condemned him to death:
“Shell is here on trial…the Company has, indeed, ducked this particular
trial, but its day will surely come…The crime of the Company’s dirty wars
against the Ogoni people will also be punished.”*

*Will a literature festival that gets sponsored by Coca Cola Company be
saved from the moral responsibility to consider the fact that the Company’s
water-intensive bottling plants in Plachimada, Kerala and Kala Dera,
Rajasthan have dried up groundwater and local wells, forcing residents to
rely on water supplies from outside the areas? The same situation is
witnessed in and around the areas of almost 52 water-intensive bottling
plants of the company in India. Will a literature festival that gets
sponsored by the US government institutions have the conscience to examine
as to why there are some 702 military installations of world’s super power
throughout the world in 132 countries along with 8,000 active and
operational nuclear warheads?*

*How is possible for the literary minds to probe the psyche of ‘infantile
insanity’ if it allows itself to be inundated by it?*

*“A writer's life is a highly vulnerable, almost naked activity. We don't
have to weep about that. The writer makes his choice and is stuck with it.
But it is true to say that you are open to all the winds, some of them icy
indeed. You are out on your own, out on a limb. You find no shelter, no
protection - unless you lie - in which case of course you have constructed
your own protection and, it could be argued, become a politician”, said
Harold Pinter while delivering his speech at the award of Nobel Prize for
Literature in 2005. He added, “...to define the real truth of our lives and
our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in
fact mandatory.”*

*One hope the Jaipur Literary festival will pay heed to Pinter’s advice and
undo its unwitting acts of Faustian bargain before it is too late.*

*We appeal to the writers attending the festival that commenced on
21st January,
2011 to condemn corporate crimes and state sponsored acts against humanity.*

*We the undersigned urge the authors to stay away from the Galle Literary
Festival, Sri Lanka which is due to open on January 26, 2011 in Sri Lanka
which notes that the “…war crimes in the final months of the fighting
between Sri Lankan troops and Tamil Tiger rebels was possible because
Colombo did not allow free access to independent journalists.” It adds,
"While mounting evidence of Sri Lanka's war crimes is being shown around the
world, journalists inside the country cannot talk about them or even visit
the northern areas because they are afraid that they will disappear or be
killed".*

*Like the Jaipur Literature Festival, the Galle Literary Festival Sri Lankan
is organised as a private initiative, but has the backing of state
enterprises in the country.*

*We find the manner of celebration of literature in a land where
journalistic activities and writers have been “transformed into propaganda
mouthpieces for the government, or into flaccid shells of their former
integrity, bullied into submission through draconian pieces of legislation
or emergency regulations” in the context of violent insurgencies or civil
wars.*

*Sd-*

*Gopal Krishna, Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties, Mb: 9818089660,
Email:krishna2777 at gmail.com <Email%3Akrishna2777 at gmail.com>*

*Prakash K Ray, Jawaharlal Nehru University Researchers Association, Mb:
9873313315, E-mail-pkray11 at gmail.com*

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