The Tata Literature Live festival on Saturday explained that its event, featuring academic-activists Noam Chomsky and Vijay Prashad was can...
The Tata Literature Live festival on Saturday explained that its event, featuring academic-activists Noam Chomsky and Vijay Prashad was cancelled to “protect the integrity of the festival”. Chomsky and Prashad had on Friday night expressed regret at the sudden cancellation of the scheduled discussion.
Anil Dharker, the festival’s founder and director, said that the session was a “considered decision” that he had taken. “Much as I deeply respect and admire the work of Prof. Noam Chomsky, this decision was necessary to protect the integrity of the festival,” he said in a statement.
Dharker said that on the morning of the session, he came across correspondence in the public domain, between Chomsky, Prashad and a group of activists, which “clearly mentioned” that this session would also be used to make a statement. He added that the participants said they would speak about “how they feel about corporations such as the Tatas, and the Tatas in particular, including airing the views of these activists”. This, Dharker said, was never the intended purpose of the session.
“What I do want to state as strongly as possible is that the festival which I founded and run with a dedicated team, owes its success to a free expression of ideas, not...
