HYDERABAD: Anyone who has met bureaucrats and their ilk, will find it difficult to picture Ashok Vajpeyi sitting behind a large glass-topped table, on a padded revolving chair with a towel draped over its back. Or going through the relays of files and supressing his irresistible humour as he read dull and dry memoranda from 1965 to 2001 as a cultural administrator and institution-builder.
Vajpeyi who concluded his career as culture secretary to the Government of India, post retirement has been very active in the cultural space and has served as chairman of the Lalit Kala Akademi, India’s National Academy of the Fine Arts. But despite his role as a cultural curator, he has over the years clinched the title of being a poet, essayist and critic extraordinaire.
In the past year, he even managed to make it “to the first page of the national newspapers,” when he decided to return his Sahitya Akademi in protest against rising intolerance in the country.
Sharp, witty and original, the poet who was in the city as part of the recently-concluded Hyderabad Literary festival says the most serious things with a straight face. And, he is flirtatious, too.
Dedicating a Ghalib’s couplet to me, he complains that “Meri taareef sab karte hain, bas mohabbat koi nahi karta.”
In a conversation with the poet-critic that got carried over from the dais to the lunch table, Vajpeyi comes across as a person, much like his poetry, simple and thought provoking. His words seem to carry meaning that emerge slow and in layers – hiding a wealth of ideas within and an emboldened spirit.
Excerpts:
You returned your Sahitya Akademi Award in protest against rising intolerance. Has anything changed since?
We succeeded in bringing the issue on national agenda. In fact, the issue remains alive so much so that the President of India in his Republic Day speech mentioned that in India the argumentative Indian has always been celebrated not the intolerant Indian.
One would not say intolerance has decreased but those who are indulging in it are aware of the fact that there are people who are watching.
In hindsight do you ever feel you should have probably not given up the award?
On the other hand I am surprised by the wide reaction it was able to create. Interesting aspect was that nobody had spoken to anybody else (about their decision to return the award). I did not even know half of those who returned the award. But, people couldn’t believe that things could be spontaneous. Some said we were inspired or instigated by opposition. Ideological people look for conspiracy. Here, there was no conspiracy. You see there is a deeper malady behind it. The Indian society is not able to believe that writers can function independently. This is very unfortunate.
You have also been very critical of the Sahitya Akademi.
The Akademis have been in the shadows for a long time. Their permanent bureaucracy which consists of non-professionals and clerks are rising in hierarchy. They have been reviewed by committees like justice Khanna Committee, Haksar Committee, etc., which shows that even at the government level there has been a feeling that they are not functioning to their fullest potential. But most Akademis have shut down these recommendations of restructuring, reforming, etc. Ultimately an institution rise or fall depends on the people who are at the top.
Mediocrity breeds mediocrity. Mediocrity aborts mediocrity.
Mediocrity nurtures mediocrity. And this is true of all the three national Akademi. If you have a mediocre person at the top the institution will automatically become mediocre. That’s what is happening. These are the areas where credentials and not ideology must function.
This year you were not even invited to the Jaipur Literature Festival, where you have been a regular over the years.
In October when the ZEE was openly taking a very partisan and prejudice view and picturing JNU and its students as anti-nationals, some of us writers raises the issue with the JLF, which is funded by the channel. This is for the first time in eight years we were not invited, and it was good, because we would have certainly refused the invitation.
Recently you were quoted saying that India is one of the few countries where democracy is still alive and functioning well. Coming from you, this was a surprise
Democracy is not merely a question of voting or elections. Its republican character needs national institutions. And even as each of its national institutions and other democratic instances are under attack and assault, the fact is that I can still criticise Modi and RSS. This makes India a democracy.
Besides, at the age of 77, I can’t give up hope. It’s like giving up life and poetry. I am fond of a saying Ram Manohar Lohia had used during the times of Congress stranglehold, “Duty is despair.” And for me, one of the duties of despair is to keep hoping.
With self publishing, which makes everyone a published author, becoming a norm, do you see this as a threat to literature?
A lot of writing in any case and in any age is rubbish, so this is nothing surprising. Except that the rubbish never got so much flaunted by the English media and I think the English media has lost all sense of good taste and pluralistic vision. For literature there has never been a golden age.
Ancient poet Bhavabhuti said thousands of years ago, “I hope one day somebody will be akin to me and I say this raising my hand because the earth is opulent and the time is without limits.” If he was complaining at the most classic hour of Indian literature, then we have nothing more to say.
What do you have to say about the condition of Hindi in the country?
Despite the difficulties Hindi remains the most hospitable language. The number of translations done in Hindi from other Indian languages so large that if you didn’t know any other language and were to confine yourself to knowing what is happening in Indian literature today, you could very well find it all from Hindi itself. Mahasweta Devi had told me that she would get more royalty from her Hindi translation than from the sales of original Bengali books. Hindi is here to stay even though media is killing it. The official language version is the real murder of the Hindi. But it is alive in people’s writing and creative imagination.
What are you working on at present?
For a long time I have been working on a book on Ghalib and Kabir. It will focus on my reading of their works as a modern poet. I will also try to create a dialogue between the two great poets who lived in 16th and 19th century respectively. The book is in Hindi and is called ‘Apni Apni Aag’ and ‘Each His Own Fire’ in English.