As one walked into India Habitat Centre, where Samanvay, a festival of Indian languages was being held, the buzz around the room was bigger than what has ever been for regional literature in the country. However, with Samanvay, an effort has been made to provide an arena for varied Indian language writers to get together, ideate and initiate a dialogue amongst them. An initiative by India Habitat Centre in partnership with Delhi Press and Pratilipi Books, the festival, described as ?a celebration of Indian writing?, set up a stage to get the much required attention from the literary fraternity to our rich tradition of regional literature. So, unlike other lit festivals, this time the focus was on Indian languages, with English on the margins.
?When we talk of Indian literature, the focus has always been on Indian writing in English. For instance, at the Jaipur Literature Festival, literature in Indian languages is lost amidst international writers and celebrities. Almost everyone knows about a Booker Prize winner or a Nobel laureate but our Sahitya Akademi or Bharatiya Jnanpith winners are being neglected,? said Satyanand Nirupam, a member of the Programme Advisory Committee of the IHC, and an organiser of Samanvay.
Regional literature is an often overlooked bunch of writings, which, though relegated to the fringes, has made a seminal contribution to the evolution of Indian literature. India has a massive body of literature produced in 22 official languages?and that?s not even a drop in the ocean of languages spoken here. With each region carrying its distinct nuance, its culture and a sense of identity have been conceptualised by writers in many different ways. Perhaps, the most persistent leitmotif is the diversity and multifarious possibilities regional literature offers in the geographical and cultural landscape of India.
To conflate the distinctive creative output of each region, Samanvay incorporated this much neglected literature with the mainstream. The festival saw 63 brilliant writers expressing varied thoughts and ideas from different cultural contexts pertinent to our social milieu.
The three-day festival, held from December 16 to 18, opened with a crucial and equally bottled-up issue of defining what encompasses Indian literature. Moderated by renowned Malayalam poet K Satchidanandan, the session titled ?Is there an Indian literature?? brought forth the possibility of scripting a new Indian link language that could be understood by all. Marathi Dalit writer, Lakshman Gaikwad, an exponent of ?one Indian language? said, ?We must make one different language which can be understood by all?. However, chairman of the Lalit Kala Akademi and Hindi poet Ashok Vajpeyi was of the view that diversity must be protected. ?Multilingualism precisely is the point of Indian literature?India was imagined in its literature and Indian literature had power to fill the linguistic divides,? he said.
It remains true that in India, the use of local languages never seemed to have endangered free exchange of ideas and thoughts with others, thereby sequestering a language within its regional folds. At the same time, it is undeniable that ?a hierarchical version of literature? is taking roots.
So should we advocate a link language to bridge the ?divide? or should we deem that Indian literature is one, although written in many languages? This is a literary discourse to which there is no easy answer.
Samanvay also laid special focus on the concept of marginalised literature. How can women writers make a room of their own abnegating the male dominated literary canon or how can writers from the North East, reeling under the constant pressure to represent their identity, efface the obvious lines which mark the boundaries? To someone like Arupa Patangia Kalita, the answer lies in empathy. ?I am from Assam but I have written about Delhi, about the labourers who were responsible for building the beautiful stadia for the Commonwealth Games. I wrote about them because I can understand their sufferings. Empathy and human sufferings are universal, whether you are from the North East or from the South,? said the eminent Assamese writer.
Another subaltern perspective, which is gradually growing to become a formidable literary genre, is Dalit literature. Samanvay played host to a profound interplay of dialogues and readings of Dalit poetry in Punjabi. It provided a platform wherein the centuries of suffering they have endured suffused beautifully with their keen sense of joie de vivre. Punjabi poet Desraj Kali conveyed it best, ?Dalit poetry is not the poetry of hatred. Rather, it is the poetry of love.? The panelists also questioned the construction of language, and discussed the necessity of re-thinking their languages by exploring new experiences and styles so far kept out of literary use.
The subaltern protest is not just inherent in Dalit writings but stretches to all forms of marginalised literature. The Malayalam session on autobiographical writings focused on stories narrated by those whose lives have passed through agonising and excruciating experiences. These were the stories of people who have rebelled against commonplace notions. CK Janu, also known as the first ?organic? leader in Kerala, started the discussion by addressing the need for an ?Adivasi? literature. She also stressed on the fact that in the fight to save the environment ?women suffered the most, as the love for the forest and the earth runs in their blood.? Sister Jesme, whose controversial book Amen: The autobiography of a nun, described the happenings within the walls of a convent, addressed how religion and politics can bind a woman. Nalini Jameela?s account of her life as a sex worker touched upon many perspectives of a patriarchal society and exposed the hypocrisy of a system that criminalised sex work and punished the sex worker while acquitting the client. Kallen Pokkudan, a name synonymous with mangrove conservation, touched upon politics in Kerala and his identity as a Dalit.
The Tamil session which discussed ?Women Writing the Body? challenged the trope of the female body as an object. Repudiating any form of bias or discrimination based on their gender, poets Kutti Revathi, Salma, Sukirtharani and Malathi Maithri had a discourse on how they have continuously fought against any hegemonic prescription of conventions. Said iconic poet and feminist Dalit writer P Sivakami, ?As a woman writer, there is no point in crying that I have not been given a space, I have to create that space. In my own terms I have created it through my writings.? However, Arupa Patangia Kalita voiced her concerns on the spatial restrictions a woman faced. ?As a writer, it is crucial to have experiences, but within the boundaries of this patriarchal space, women cannot move freely to collect experiences. The male world has silenced and restricted our movements.?
Perhaps it could be said that Dalit literature and women?s writing are two of the most important literary movements that have emerged from regional writing. It has lent a voice to the marginalised and oppressed in a country focused on globalisation. However, the bigger question is the shelf life of this form of writing in a highly shifting society. Is regional literature a dying tradition? If it is, how can it be saved and revived and is translation the only way? According to Satyanand Nirupam, regional writers are the real bearers of culture. ?If we do not focus on them, regional literature will become a dying art. We must strive to preserve the original form of our rich heritage. And through Samanvay, we aim to present the real perspective.?
Samanvay not just calls upon the literary fraternity to embrace the consciousness realised through the writings of India?s 22 official languages, but also endeavours to create a space, where the rich dialect literature can be explored and promoted. The second Indian Languages? Festival, which will be held in November 2012, aims to do this in its effort to enrich regional literature.