‘Don’t polarise us, let’s celebrate literature’

Bengaluru: What does it take to run a literature festival which depends on the love of a community? More than just love and labour! The organisers, this year apart from the sweat of running the largest community-funded festival have been caught up in the whole intolerance row which forced them to take some hard decisions collectively, including the stepping down of historian Vikram Sampath as one of the organisers.

Speaking to Deccan Chronicle about the journey so far, V Ravichandar who is also a part of the organising committee now after Vikram says, “This year challenges are different and raising money is now the easiest part. The serious challenge was that the essence of Bangalore Literature Festival which is a neutral platform and accommodates all shades of opinion despite speakers belonging to any end of the spectrum is maintained. It has been a tough edition on that regards."

Sadly, a community-funded festival whose benefactors donate only as ‘friends of BLF’ and no corporate houses have been in a position to dominate the essence of the festival, now has to bear the brunt of the intolerance issue. Prakash Belawadi had earlier spoken to Deccan Chronicle and asserted that, "the act of boycotting a festival as this reflects the heights of intolerance and if they have such opposing views to a noted historian; I don't know what to call tolerance."

"Sadly we are getting bracketed into either right wing and left wing which is unfortunate and people should be celebrating the essence of this festival rather than pull us down. We are seriously polarised into camps and our desire as organisers to create a platform which follows the ethics of a proper debate is being defeated," asserts Ravichander. The organisers further inform that they have not restricted any of the writers from conveying their views openly.

"There is no restriction on what authors can speak and we are accepting all shades of opinion however, writers have been asked to follow certain platform values meaning they should not make personally offensive remarks," says Ravichander. The committee has faced other challenges in the form of accusations.

“We are trying our level best to maintain the balance in terms of opinions that are presented and issues that are covered at panel discussion,” says Ravi who also adds, “We have been slammed as elitists and that there is not enough Kannada representation. But, we are making our best effort to get equal representation and in fact there is film in Beary which is an endangered language and Konkani. We are going to sensitise the people about these languages”.

Special events

• Makkala Koota – Lit for Kids @ BLF: workshops for children on songwriting, story writing and illustration
• Bangalore Literature Festival LitMart
• Bangalore Literature Festival Workshop Series
• The Little Languages Film Festival
• Atta Galatta – Bangalore Literature Festival Book Prize
• World War I Exhibition by Elke
• Falat and Julia Teke

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