Part 2..
The Valley of Words Literature and Art Festival enters its 8th Edition this year. Dr Tania Saili Bakshi caught up with Founder Dr Sanjeev Chopra to find out what one can expect from this year’s Literature and Art Festival scheduled for the 16th-17th of November.
How do you decide the topic for Vox Populi ? And how do you manage to get MPs from across party lines ?
Well, the credit for this goes to our Board member Dr Amna Mirza. As a distinguished teacher of political science and as a social entrepreneur she is in touch with young political leaders across the spectrum. Our challenge is to find a topic on which MPs can engage without having a strict party line to fall back upon. For example ,if we were to hold a discussion on a topic like, say the caste-based census, option is so clearly divided that MPs will have no option but to parrot the party line. As such we have always taken care to select a topic which allows for a frank exchange f views. As for example, the discussion on whether English is (also) an Indian language, or whether urbanisation is the panacea to all our problems, and whether the best debates occur outside of parliament. This is how we brainstormed and thought of this subject ‘Foreign Policy should be realist, not idealist.’ We are happy to share the Kamaljeet Sherawat from the (BJP – Bharatiya Janata Party), Gaurav Gogoi (INC- Indian National Congress), Lavu Sri Krishna Devarayalu (TDP – Telugu Desam Party), Manoj Jha (RJD – Rashtriya Janata Dal), Sant Balbir Singh Seechewal (AAP – Aam Aadmi Party), Dr. V. Sivadasan (CPI – M – Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Pushpendra Saroj (SP – Samajwadi Party) have sent in their confirmations .
I believe there are two tribute sessions? Could you elaborate upon them?
Last year, we lost two very active members of the VoW family Jaskiran Chopra and Dhirendra Sharma. Jaskiran had in fact attended the first preparatory meeting of VoW way back in March of 2017. She had attended every single festival, launched her books, curated our sessions, written about us in her columns, and trained our volunteers to write short crisp reports and blogs on our sessions. We will honour her by asking each of the invited poets to recite some verses from her collection, before reading out their own. My own association with her goes back to over two decades – she was then reporting for the UNI, and I was a Secretary to the Governor of Uttaranchal ( as Uttarakhand was then called).
Prof Dhirendra Sharma was an engaged intellectual. Although for health reasons, he could not attend any of our sessions post Covid, his support to VoW came in the form of helping us select the books on environment and ecology. As the head of the Committee of Scientists for a sane nuclear Policy, and the Editor of an ISSN numbered science journal PSA (Philosophy & Social Action ) he led the debate on the pros and cons of nuclearization of our energy sector . The session has been curated by our Board Member Rajendra Dobhal who heads our science, environment and ecology vertical. He is also organising a session which looks into Artificial Intelligence and the future of medicine. As a senior educator and as a VC, he is aware of the interface between science and society, and these sessions help in bridging a vital information gap between the adherents of pure, applied and social sciences. I may mention that the Swami Rama Himalayan University which he helms is also one of the eight knowledge institutions participating in the Lead@VoW initiative.
VoW is a literature festival? Why do you look at Military History and Strategy?
Because so much of our public discourse is on the issue of defence. And we would like our discussions to be fact based , and with a vision for the future. As things stand today, in absolute terms, a figure of 6 .22 lakh crores for the defence forces looks substantial. But it is just about 1.9 percent of our GDP and less than 13 percent of our budget. Much of this goes to pay and pension, and this expenditure is likely to rise in the coming years. Therefore, finding the right balance between technology upgradation and the human resources for our defence forces ,which in the years to come have to be prepared for any and all possible exigencies becomes important. We will have a viewpoint from all the three wings – army , air force and navy about India’s strategic options and possibilities. The MHS vertical is chaired by our Board member Lt Gen PJS Pannu.
Are there exhibitions lined up as well?
Yes. The first of these is on the museums of Uttarakhand, which is being curated by Anjali Bhartari . These include ( ask her for names of museums ). Then we have an exhibition of the products prepared by the SHGs affiliated to Hesco. There is the Iti Lekh- an exhibition of books, Iti Smriti – the Vow memorabilia and an exhibition of the best products of Uttarakhand and Tribes India.
What about Hindi literature lovers? Do we have anything special lined up for them as well?
Oh yes. As mentioned earlier, the authors of all the three Hindi award winning books i.e. Dr Suresh Pant, Subhash Neerav and Uday Prakash will be here. We have our Board member Lakshmi Shankar Bajpai, Mamta Kiran and Anjum Sharma with us on both the days. As many of your readers may be aware, we have already held a full-fledged Hindi vertical at the Graphic Era Hill university in the last fortnight of September. The best part is that this year, we have a very active engagement with the university and school teachers. I would like to make a mention of the special edition of Sadaneera, curated by Anjum Sharma which carries the reviews of all the forty shortlisted books, including those of English fiction and non-fiction. Till last year, for the English books, we used to translate the write -ups published in The Book Review. We have a Mushaira session and a Poetry Tribute session in Hindi, English and Urdu, along with five book launches in Hindi as well.
We hear that there is a special edition of VoWels ? Tell us about it ?
From this year, we have decided to launch our own publication – this will have reviews and author interviews of our short-listed authors , as well as opinion pieces from the curators of different verticals. This will cover almost everything we do – from the International MotherLanguage Day to all the knowledge verticals held across the country. The edition has been designed by our Board member, Kishore Menon, and will reflect his stye and aesthetic.
And is there anything that you would like to add ?
Yes, the support we have received from our sponsors – from REC, Government of Uttarakhand, Ministry of Tourism , Green Panel, ONGC, Urbana, Cello, NAFED, Gujarat Ambuja, Nestle, LSC, Teesta, Tropolite, GVM. A very special thank you to Technopak who manages our website and our corporate outreach, The Print, Garhwal Post and Radio Zindagi and AIR for giving us all the coverage that has helped us become the numero uno festival, not just in Dehradun but also in Indore, Pune, Chennai and New Delhi.
To be Cont…
