The Final Day

Laxmi 

Flower Arrangement on our Hotel Floor 

Restaurant at City Palace

Today was the fifth and last day of the Jaipur Literary Festival. Once again it has been a great experience for us. We were introduced to books, authors and ideas we would never experience in America. We were lucky that the weather was so cooperative. It was warmer than previous years and we experienced no rain.

Over 300,000 people attended the festival over the 5 days. It is the largest literary festival in the world. At any given time there are 5 different venues presenting panels, we had to be judicious as we selected the sessions we wanted to attend. All are recorded and available free on-line, so we can always stream what we missed.

The first panel I attended was entitled “Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms”. Within the Muslim world of the Mid-East there have been various sects and religions that have survived for millennia. Some of these religions are obscure and have very hidden practices like the Yard's of Iraq, others like the Druze of Lebanon are more widely known. Because of the upheavals and chaos of the Arab world these ancient religions are in danger of extinction. The peoples have been displaced away from their religious sites, ISIS has destroyed many relics, and entire ways of life have been disrupted. Many of these religions are doomed as the cohesiveness brought on by their remote locations are destroyed by the necessity of fleeing for their lives. The lecture by Gerald Russell from his book “Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms” opened my eyes to these strange religions and their plights. The only one that is still semi-flourishing is the Coptic Christians of Egypt.

The next session was entitled “On Empire”. It featured Shashi Tharoor. Shashi is an intellectual, an author of many books, an extremely handsome man, a member of the Indian Parliament, and a possible murder of his deceased wife. The British Raj brought much to India: The English Language, an English style parliament, cricket, railways, etc. It also subjugated the people, caused the death of up to 30 million people, sent back to England enormous wealth and denied to the Indians the very rights that they proclaimed as the reason they came to India. Indians have a very ambivalent feeling about the Raj. The session tried to sort out some these complex issues.

The next session was with Vali Nasr, entitled after his book The Shia Revolution. If only George Bush had heard this lecture before the war in Iraq. He covered so much ground I could write several pages about the ramifications of the Shia Revolution. Suffice to say, the split between Suni and Shia goes back to the years after the death of the Prophet Mohammed. Both Suni and Shia view the Koran as their holy book, yet on almost every interpretation they disagree. The split is gigantic, much bigger than Catholic vs. Protestant in the west. It involves political control. The Suni’s have been the traditional leaders of nations, the Shia are often thought of as lower class. The bottom line is that the old order has crumbled and no one knows what will happen next. The only optimistic thing in the Middle East is Nuclear Deal with Iran, which holds the possibility of Shia Iran becoming a stabilizing force in the Middle East.

The next panel was entitled From Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo. It was extremely unflattering in its description of these American Prisons. When you hear them discussed in a foreign country, you realize the great damage these two prisions have done to America’s reputation. The hostility of the audience towards America was palatable. Obviously other countries have their own prisons, many of which I am sure are far worse, but these two have become a rallying point against the United States. Abu Ghraib is no longer under our control but Guantanamo is. Of the 800 men that have been sent to Guantanamo, only 20 were even chargeable. The two American authors on the panel gave chilling recitations of these two institutions and how the have corrupted  the American Judicial and Prison systems.

The final session was jammed packed. It featured Laxmi Narayan Tripathi. Laxmi is a very politically active Hijra. The Hijra in India are roughly comparable to what we would call Transgender in the United States. They are a combination of hermaphrodites, eunuchs and transgender men. Laxmi is outspoken, extremely intelligent, politically savy and a natural communicator. She LOVES the limelight. The large audience adored her.

The final event of the Jaipur Literary Festival is always an Oxford Style debate. The proposition was: Should India have Unlimited Free Speech. 4 people spoke for the proposition, 4 against. This was the most crowded event of the 5 days. There were thousands of people jammed into the venue to listen to the debate. For Cathy and me the answer is obvious. Unlimited Free Speech, that is what we enjoy in America. Although India’s Constitution guarantees free speech it is limited. The people that thought there should be limits on free speech all talked of the responsibility of the speaker not to offend the sensibilities of others. In America we don’t put that responsibility on the speaker, if the listener is offended, so be it. They can respond in turn. In India people not only can be offended but they can also bring the weight of the state against the speaker. This leads to censor boards that vet movies, books etc. There was much cheering and hand clapping as various speakers made their debate points. It was almost like a sporting event with the audience cheering on the speakers making their points. I can’t conceive of an event like this in America.

Everyone is appalled about the fact Donald Trump could possibly be elected president of the United States. His campaign besmirches the country in foreign eyes.

We returned to our hotel for cocktails. John and Shumon joined us for a ride into downtown Jaipur to the City Palace for a dinner at a new restaurant. The modern architecture combined with the old palace made for a beautiful restaurant.