Once, many years ago, I was both excited by the idea of literature festivals and enthusiastic participant. I did not agree with Arundhati Roy when she said that they were merely elitist affairs. I thought meeting with other writers who themselves are facing persecution, listening to poets from different cultures and an opportunity to exchange ideas felt like a breath of fresh air and many people, who are not at all from the bourgeoisie, got an opportunity to meet the writers and even interact with them.
However, the Jaipur Literature Festival is a testimony to the truth of Roy’s criticism. It is a festival which attracts many writers and poets, but the five days of the festival also serves the interest of the elite in a totally different way. Otherwise why would corporations like Vedanta and Maruti Suzuki sponsor the festival?
Jaipur festival has been rightly compared to the Maha Kumbh. One of our national dailies reported that the Jaipur Literary Festival, with “more than 300 speakers from all across the globe[,] will discuss the issues of the country and the world in this Maha Kumbh which will be a grand confluence of literature, art and music…”
Perhaps the metaphor of Maha Kumbh is a good one because in the biggest religious festival, we see spectacles and extravaganza but there is no space for conversations on the urgent issues of our times. There is no space for engaging with the challenges facing the real world; issues with which many authors may be actually engaged.
Even when some vital issue is discussed, the format of the discussion makes for little impact. In contrast, at the Kerala festival in Kozhikode, Irish author Paul Lynch, author of the Booker Prize-winning novel Prophet Song, spoke of how his book deals with how people are in denial “about just how bad things are, about the fact that it is really over”.
How bad are things?
The devastating effect on the environment by Vedanta and the working conditions of the workers in Maruti Suzuki plants are a glimpse into the bleak future which awaits the next generation of workers in both rural areas and in the heart of urban India.
The media is oozing with praise for the Jaipur Festival. Sample this: In this grandest “celebration of books and ideas worldwide, Vedanta presents Jaipur Literature Festival 2025 in association with Maruti Suzuki and powered by Vida, which opened today with a calming Ganesh vandana…”
Reading about the opening ceremony reminded me how the Maruti Suzuki management had responded to the union’s charter of demands in 2012, when the workers had given vent to their rage. The Japanese management had refused to recognise that there was any cause for grievances; instead they had criminalised the dispute and the entire union had been framed in a murder case in which 13 of the leaders were eventually given a life sentence. More than 2,000 workers were thrown out without any domestic enquiry. Within the factory, the management hired a famous Bangalore-based Vedic astrologer to sort out “vaastu issues” at the Manesar plant. As we have written previously, the astrologer, Daivajna K.N. Somayaji, was brought in to ensure that the violence of July 18, 2012, did not occur ever again.
According to this astrologer, the problem was rooted in the fact that a part of the 600-acre plant site had once served as a burial ground. Besides, he said, three temples which existed at the site had been razed to set up the plant. There was too much negative energy at the site. The astrologer was asked to purge the site of all negative energy through a series of rituals spread over two to three weeks.
If the management believed in the efficacy of Indian Vedic astrology, they should have accepted that the workers were affected by powers beyond their control and not filed criminal cases against them.
The Maruti Suzuki management has consistently violated Indian labour codes and labour laws. Over the years, they have been throwing out permanent workers and only employing workers between the ages of 18 and 26 – and that too only on a temporary basis.
Added to the anxieties and uncertainties of unemployment is the Government of India’s Skill India programme, which promised to create some 30 crore jobs. The workers being trained by Maruti Suzuki training institute are taken in for two years, but within a short time they are put on the assembly line without learning any skills. They are made to do the same work as a permanent worker, but on a salary which is barely the minimum statutory wage.
Here is an example of the certificates Maruti Suzuki gives the trainees.
The non-permanent workers who have worked in any of the Maruti Suzuki plants have recently formed a union on January 5, 2025. They have given their demand letter to the labour commissioner. For most of the 5,000 former non-permanent workers, the union is their only hope. But already they have been harassed by the police and detained on two separate days, and released at night.
While the Maruti Suzuki company is sponsoring the biggest literary Maha Kumbh, employees and former employees are realising that they have no future. The government has announced their decision to enforce the new labour codes, making fixed-term employment legal. The management has told the labour commissioner that they do not recognise the new union.
The thousands of ordinary people visiting the Jaipur Literature Festival are likely unaware of the role a company like Maruti Suzuki is playing in depriving Indian citizens of their constitutional rights. The sufferings of the workers is invisible at the literary Maha Kumbh.
In India, we have not been too critical of the way private capital is exercising disproportionate influence over not only the Indian economy and politics, but also the cultural field. By targeting individuals like Ambani and Adani, we have made the role of other corporates invisible.
The sponsorship of the Jaiput Literature Festival by Maruti Suzuki (and Vedanta) is not an innocent act of corporate largess, but an attempt to control and sabotage the radical potential of writers, literature, poetry and culture. There is a need to not only expose the dangers of such sponsorship, but use these platforms to make the sufferings of the people visible and their struggles relevant in the field of culture.
Nandita Haksar is a human rights lawyer and an award-winning author.
