3 panellists skip JLF event in US over Shazia Ilmi’s presence

Three panellists reportedly withdrew from a Jaipur Literature Festival event in New York as they refused to share the stage with BJP national spokesperson Shazia Ilmi, according to the Middle East Eye.

The decision by the three panellists – including authors Marie Brenner and Amy Waldman – came after activists and writers called for a protest against the policies of the BJP by skipping the event. The JLF event was “normalising” Hindutva in the US, the activists had said. The event was scheduled from September 12 to 14.

Ilmi, who was supposed to deliver the keynote address, said she was not aware that speakers had pulled out due to her presence. She said if true, it represented “intolerance of the worst kind”, but that “it remains entirely their choice” to stay away. “This entire cancel culture and self-cancel culture that they are bringing to the table represents and smacks of intolerance of the worst kind.”

While the JLF has not officially commented on the matter, Manash Pratim Deka from JLF New York told MEE, “JLF celebrates the written word and ideas and is representative of diverse views and thoughts.”

However, British-Indian author Aatish Taseer, who is in the know of things, confirmed to MEE that three panellists skipped the event. Taseer said those who had withdrawn were “afraid to make a political statement” since “they have relationships with people in the festival”. The British-Indian author – whose Overseas Citizen of India card status was revoked in 2019 following his critical article on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for Time magazine – said many of the speakers were made to believe that they were attending a festival with “respectable, intellectual people with bodies of work behind them”.

Taseer went on to say that South Asian activists and writers who were aware of the political situation in India had to “be mobilised to explain to participants that ‘these are full-on right-wing ideologues, including card-holding members of the BJP'”. “These people who are appearing from the New York side who are liberals would never be caught dead with these people. So it’s a really, really insidious and sly thing that the JLF leaders have done,” Taseer hit out.

“JLF has exploited the natural ignorance that exists between any two societies to win legitimacy for Potemkin intellectuals, while sullying the reputations and outraging the morality of serious people. It’s a fiasco. If your aim is to make fascism palatable, let people know what they’re signing up for.”