Hyderabad: The heated words of Telangana State governor E.S.L. Narasimhan seemed to be the theme of the first actual day of panel discussions and workshops at the Hyderabad Literary Festival, with speakers either staying completely silent about the incident or taking potshots at the governor. “We have somehow lost the capacity to converse, to be able to talk about where freedom begins and ends, the right to insult somebody. We’re completely under attack,” said Vasanth Kannabiran from the Asmita Resource Centre for Women, who opened the first session of the day - ‘free speech and censorship’. The criticism of the Governor’s statement that civil society was employing “double standards” while discussing tolerance continued into other talks. Nayantara Sahgal chose to stick by her opinion from opening day claiming individuals voicing opinion was “facing violence”.
“Censorship in a democratic society has to be decided by the public. Individually, you can choose not to read something if you don’t agree with it,” she said, adding, “Protest is acceptable as long as it is non-violent. What we are facing today is violence from people who oppose us... I’m a child of Gandhi’s India, and I was brought up on the mantra “Ishwar-Allah, tere naam, sabko sanmati de bhagwan.”
Ms Sahghal was involved in the infamous exchange with the Governor on opening day of the literature festival. Also referring to the governor’s statements was transgender activist Navdeep, who moderated the panel discussion on “Gender and Identity” in the afternoon.
“When we have a governor saying that our culture is great, what tradition is he talking about when we have a 2,000 year old caste system still operating? And what kind of a city of Hyderabad is he talking about when there are trans people abused and violated every other day? The state, which is supposed to protect, doesn’t want to acknowledge that you are in trouble,” Navdeep said. And as a final poke at the Governor’s thoughts, poet Sudeep Sen employed a bit of humour while reciting an erotic poem on stage at a later session. “The governor is probably not going to buy this,” he remarked.
India’s security is pedestrian: Reddy
Mediocre leadership is the biggest challenge when it comes to national security, said Brigadier G.B. Reddy (retd) at a talk on the topic, “Security Matters” on the second day of the Hyderabad Literary Festival. He said that apart from a few years of rule under former PM Indira Gandhi, the country had not seen strong leadership. Brig. Reddy said India’s approach towards security was “absolutely pedestrian” and not nation-centric but “regime centric”. He said, “The Indian government over the years has not come out with a National Security Strategy paper whereas countries like USA and China come out with it periodically. Are we so intellectually bankrupt?”
Brig. Reddy credited China’s success to the strong leadership of past presidents and how present President Xi Jinping was working towards achieving the “Chinese Dream” by 2049, the 100th founding anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. He gave an example of how China, even though it started its nuclear programme almost 16 years after India, had built 26 nuclear reactors, had 24 under construction and planned to have 82 by 2020, whereas India had 21 under operation and just six under construction; he added that energy sufficiency was important for national security.
He also raised the issue of why India had nearly 35 headquarters of various armed units in the country rather than having an integrated approach under one ministry like in China. Brig. Reddy’s cynicism and many comparisons with China, however, were not well received by some as one youngster asked why did he not move to China if he felt that the country was doing so well. He replied that it was for the younger generation to ensure that cynicism did not prevail and the following generations had failed to do so.