At 9 p.m. on Friday, the dialogue about the 91-year-old Chomsky’s new book ‘Internationalism or Extinction’ was scheduled to be held.
Noam Chomsky, the celebrated linguist and activist, along with journalist Vijay Prashad have expressed regret at the “abrupt cancellation” of their discussion at the online Tata Literature Live festival, questioning if the decision was a result of censorship.
At 9 p.m. on Friday, the dialogue about the 91-year-old Chomsky’s new book ‘Internationalism or Extinction’ was scheduled to be held. However, at 1 p.m., Chomsky and Prashad received an email informing them that the virtual event will not be taking place.
Chomsky and Prashad, in a statement issued on People’s Dispatch, said that they were informed of the event’s cancellation in the mail.
“Then, out of nowhere, near 1 p.m. Indian Standard Time, we received an email which said, cryptically, ‘I am sorry to inform you that due to unforeseen circumstances, we have to cancel your talk today’,” their joint statement read.
“It is with regret that we could not hold our discussion at the Mumbai Lit Fest, now owned and operated by the Tata Corporation… Since we do not know why Tata and Mr. Dharker decided to cancel our session, we can only speculate and ask simply: was this a question of censorship?” the statement questioned.
“We wanted to talk about how governments such as those led by the Bharatiya Janata Party and corporations such as the Tatas are hastening humanity towards a deeper and deeper crisis,” the statement said.
“We wanted to appear at this platform in the spirit of open discussion to hold our dialogue about extinction and internationalism, about the darkest part of our human story and the brightest sparks of hope that shine in our world,” it further said.
Responding to the allegations, Mumbai (Tata) Lit Fest festival’s founder and director Anil Dharker, said the session featuring academic-activists Noam Chomsky and Vijay Prashad was cancelled to “protect the integrity of the festival.”
“Much as I deeply respect and admire the work of Prof. Noam Chomsky, this decision was necessary to protect the integrity of the festival,” said Mr Dharker in a statement.
The festival owes its success to a free expression of ideas, not a free expression of someone’s specific agenda, he added.
“On the morning of the session, we came across correspondence in the public domain, between Noam Chomsky, Vijay Prashad and a group of activists, which clearly mentioned that this session would also be used to make a statement regarding how they feel about corporations such as the Tatas, and the Tatas in particular, including airing the views of these activists, which was never the intended purpose of the session,” the detailed statement by Mr Dharker read.
“The expression of such an agenda – whether against a specific organisation, a corporation or an individual – is therefore misplaced in the discussions at our festival,” it further added.
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