India’s literary landscape has always extended across languages and traditions. Stories and ideas have travelled through classical texts and oral cultures, regional literature and poetry, folk traditions, translation and publishing. Ek Bharat Anek Bol Literary Festival is being conceived as a space where these different strands can meet and be heard together.
The programme will include conversations around India’s classical languages as well as regional, tribal, indigenous and endangered linguistic traditions. Translation, publishing, oral cultures and the preservation of languages will also form part of the festival.
At the heart of Ek Bharat Anek Bol is the idea of “Confluence of Linguistic & Cultural Diversity,” bringing together the country’s many languages, literary traditions and cultural voices on one platform.
For Rashmi Ranjan Parida, Founder-Director of Kalinga Literary Festival, the plurality of voices is central to the idea of the new platform.
“India’s literary and civilisational strength has never come from speaking in one voice. It comes from our ability to speak in many languages, carry different memories, question one another and yet remain part of a shared conversation,” he said.
Literature will remain at the centre of the festival, but the programme will also engage with subjects that shape contemporary life. Books, poetry, translation and publishing will sit alongside conversations on artificial intelligence, education, sustainability, business, development, sport and popular culture.
More than 100 writers from across South Asia are expected to take part, with 48 conversations planned over the three days.
Padma Bhushan Dr Pratibha Ray, distinguished Odia writer, scholar and Sahitya Akademi Fellow, said: “The essence of literature is about the many voices of India reflecting the soul of a nation that speaks in countless languages, yet dreams, feels and remembers as one. In our many words, we discover one India.”
A significant part of the programme will look at languages that are at risk of fading from everyday use. Discussions around endangered and indigenous languages are expected to explore oral archives, documentation and mother-tongue education.
India also has rich literary traditions that often develop within their own linguistic worlds, which means important writing in one language may remain unfamiliar to readers in another. The festival will look at how literature can travel across languages while retaining the voice and context of the original work.
Prof Jatindra Kumar Nayak, Professor Emeritus and literary scholar, said: “In India we are lucky to live in a world that is vibrantly multiple. Its linguistic diversity is a source of incredible vitality for us. This is what KLF will celebrate at the Ek Bharat Anek Bol Festival to be held in Delhi in December.”
Delhi provides a natural setting for such a gathering. The capital is home to major universities, publishing houses, cultural institutions and media organisations. It is also a city shaped every day by people, languages and traditions from across India.
KLF also plans to connect Indian-language literature with wider literary networks through publishers, universities and cultural institutions. The aim is to create more opportunities for Indian writing and ideas to travel, while bringing international conversations into dialogue with India’s own literary traditions.
Vikas Swarup, novelist and former diplomat, said: “Ek Bharat Anek Bol will be a platform to showcase the extraordinary linguistic diversity of India and to celebrate the many gifted voices writing in our vernacular languages, bringing their rich literary contributions to a wider audience.”
For KLF, which has spent more than a decade building literary and cultural platforms, Ek Bharat Anek Bol Literary Festival marks a new chapter in that journey. The Delhi edition extends its focus on books and ideas into a format centred on the country’s linguistic diversity and the conversations emerging from it.
Over three days, the festival will bring together literature, language, culture and contemporary thought on one platform. Further details on the programme and participating voices will be announced in the run-up to December.
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