Making Hay while the sun shines?

The Hay Festival, Bangladesh's premier English language literary festival, has caused much less ire than it did last year when parades and processions were held in protest. Many have flocked to the Bangla Academy to enjoy a fun day for the literati. The protesting murmurs have gone off the streets and are feeling snugger in Bangladesh's widest street , the Facebook. This shift not only signifies an acceptance of a reality, a management of a familiar anxiety but also the consistence of the Hay makers who know that given the lack of stomach for long term resistance of the opponents, this protesting would not last long. That's what is happening now.

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What is the Hay Festival? It brings together in Bangladesh, English language speakers and writers from different parts of the world. People discuss books, occasionally sip tea and munch snacks, praise or bitch a bit and maybe, just maybe sell a book or two. It also provides an opportunity to launch books by local publishers to a larger audience though this is where the real fiction is since Bangladeshi book sales are abysmally low. So it's mostly a celebration of an as yet niche publishing world, English. The rest that gets said is largely a result of a completely different argument which is about the identity anxiety of a middle class slightly at bay, looking for enemies to fling arrows at as they feel marginalised by the world of greater privileges than those enjoyed by themselves.

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Bangla culture as we know it is a colonial product and the result of the Dewani take over by the British East India company in Bengal. The Company in their own interest funded the rise of a new community, the Bengali Hindus who took to both trade and education, free for the first time. This push on economic development also required the funding of a new culture of the Bengali (Hindu) middle class free from the burden of aligning with an invading ruling class, the Turko-Afghan Muslims. This transition allowed the flowering of Kolkata based Bengali culture which was later adopted as universal Bengali culture. This – Bengal Renaissance- was however a product of a subsidised cultural aspiration of this new class, a byproduct of colonialism. This colonialism was good for the middle class and they benefitted in every possible way from it, whether it be better social standards, higher economic opportunities, better access to education, a space to practice liberal values or printed books, etc. But it's a product of colonial needs to a great extent. That also means that collaboration with foreign rule is what has made what we call our traditional Bengali culture, Hindu or Muslim. It was a product of foreign hands holding the same limb of the local variety.

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The rise of mainstream Indian politics was largely a matter of collaboration with the British and the nationalist movement was one of negotiating privileges. Till 1857, this was essentially a matter between the British and the non-Muslims but after that date the Muslims became a factor. By 1905 when Bengal was partitioned for the first time, this community had become strong enough to demand separate electorates for the Muslims and separate advantages. But at no time where these two communities ever free from the British shadow that cast over them. No matter what they said or did, Bengali or English, it could be traced to colonial rule. That didn't change then, it probably hasn't change much now.

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Most of the Hay Festival critics have talked about the privileged and the class element. Last year a group of writers had argued that Bangla Academy should not be used as a space for English language activities. This was a fundamentalist approach but also a valid expression of anxiety about losing their cultural space. Bangla Academy is an exclusive domain of the Bengali speaking literati and English language activities are a threat to the vernacular elite. So this reaction is inevitable and when this reaction was expressed it came packaged in nationalist cultural colours obviously. This was a clean example of competing for a cultural space which also produces privilege. Essentially, it again became a contest between the locally established elite and what they thought was the new elite. Such battles have been fought before in this land.

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What maybe vexing the old literary elite is the easy proximity of the Hay elite to English language literary celebrities and the anxiety that a common language may create a representation of the Bangla literary nation. The kind of desire most writers have to be accessible through translation is high. But it's not only the English speaking elite they seek but also the Indian and West Bengal elite. To be published in India is one of the greatest achievements and any translation in English of their work which are usually bad is even more sought after.

A foreign literati particularly from the West is a prized possession often at national literary events. But none of these are a threat to the local literati. What changes the scene is the connection through English. Suddenly, there is competition for access to the privileges that are denied to the local including familiarity with Westerners, invitations, recognition, familiarity etc. The distance from London to Nilkhet is long indeed unless conveyed in English. And English is not everyone's language in Bangladesh. It's of a particular class, culture and privilege. Given our education built on Bengali language pride, English is neglected cutting off connections with other elite and producing a new one with which conversations are not possible. Again, it's the divide of privileges that divide, those who can access the West easily and those who want to but can't.

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Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Ghosh, .. and other Indians are not trashed because there is no threat felt by local Indian writers. They are confident of their status and these writers face no competition from the "foreign writers". They have competed and succeeded in the international market and they are a source of pride for India. But Bangladesh is hardly cosmopolitan and their literary market doesn't produce enough goods to satisfy. Only two writers have emerged which could be called popular- Humayun Ahmed and Zafar Iqbal- but they are acutely reflective of the Bangladeshi psyche and that psyche is not exactly international. It's based on the cultural parochialism that can't be related to anyone outside the narrow borders of Bangladesh. In a way this is an island culture in which everyone was OK. The Hay festival built a boat to go outside and the locals don't want that.

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But this is an entirely unnecessary anxiety. Bangladeshi literature would not interest outsiders no matter how many Bengali Hays were held. The Hay festival will go on and generate more contacts but it's a showcase not a literary camp. In our world of many divides this is one more but no matter how competitive it may be thought, it's not that. Hay Festival is in its own world and maybe quality translations can make a big difference in bringing both old and new elite read each other.
The sun shines, make Hay everyone.