Intolerance for writing, which often manifests in banning books or burning them, poses the biggest threat to Indian democracy with unfortunately no "lakshman rekha" available to distinguish genuine literature from objectionable content, debated authors at the Jaipur Literature Festival here today.
One of the contexts to the debate was the recent decision by Tamil writer Perumal Murugan to renounce writing after he faced protests from various organisations over what they dubbed as objectionable content in his novel "Madhurabagan".
Celebrated Tamil author C S Laxmi worried if publishers would continue to publish writers in the face of opposition.
"We as authors are no longer worried whether our books will sell or not but whether we will be able to write at all. If books will be burnt over such issues, will publishers continue to publish us?" the feminist writer said.
"Whether we burn a book or we burn the author himself, it's equally an act of violence," Laxmi said participating in a panel discussion "Is the Commerce of Literature Today Killing Good Writing?".
Writer Nayantara Sehgal, a fellow panelist said it was "high time" for society to stop worrying about "what content will hurt whose sentiments."
"If we were so sentimental about hurting our religious sentiments, we would still be burning our widows," the 87-year-old writer said.
The session was chaired by Bollywood lyricist Prasoon Joshi who spoke his mind about why the topic was not discussed more in the mainstream media and also whether voices that speak contrary to the issue be heard and given space?
"There is nothing wrong in discussing the negativities of a particular text, but how justified is taking to the streets demanding a rollback of the book from market," Joshi asked.
Kartika V K, publisher, Harper Collins spoke about the challenges faced by the publishing industry.
"As a publisher, I would stand by my writer and support the idea with which the book was published in the first place. If a book is banned, float ebooks for free on the Internet and see who will stop you. Publishers are vulnerable because the law doesn't support us in a really big way," she said.
