The Jaipur Literature Festival, 2026
By Justice Markandey Katju
The Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) 2026 is taking place at Jaipur, Rajasthan, India in Hotel Clarks Amer from 15th to 19th January 2026, with great fanfare, pomp, panoply, and ostentation.
Presented by Vedanta and produced by Teamwork Arts, the festival seeks to bring together so-called eminent artists and thinkers for five days of sessions on literature, politics, AI, and contemporary issues, with events including book fairs, poetry sessions, music, and artisan stalls.
Despite all the trumpeting and heralding of this as a great world literary and artistic event, my own opinion is that it will only be a vain, fruitless, and worthless show of silly pageantry, flamboyance, extravaganza, and empty razzmatazz and mummery.
One would expect serious discussion on literature during such festivals, particularly the indigenous literature of Kabir, Tulsidas, Sharad Chandra Chattopadhyaya, Premchand, Ghalib, Faiz, Manto, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Thiruvalluvar, Subramania Bharti etc, but I doubt this would take place.
Instead, the Jaipur Literature Festival will only be a tamasha, contributing nothing to art and literature, and the audiences suckered and palmed off with gobbledygook, tripe, claptrap, crap, dreck, balderdash, prattle and blather, posing to be great art, literature, and ideas. This is what happened in the Jaipur Literary Festivals in previous years, and is likely to happen again.
In Shakespeare's words in Macbeth, it will be " A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing ".
Let me explain why I say this.
There are broadly two theories of art and literature (1) art for art's sake (2) art for social purpose.
According to the first theory, art and literature are only meant to create beautiful or entertaining works to please and entertain people and artists themselves, and they are not meant to propagate social ideas. If art and literature is used for propagating social ideas, it ceases to be art and becomes propaganda.
Some proponents of the first theory are Keats, Tennyson, Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot in English literature, Edgar Allan Poe in American literature, Agyeya and the ‘Reetikal’ and ‘Chayavadi’ Poets in Hindi literature, Jigar Moradabadi in Urdu literature, and Tagore in Bengali literature.
The second theory is that art and literature should serve the people, and help them in their struggle for a better life, by arousing the people’s anger against social evils, oppression and injustice, and increasing their sensitivity regarding the people’s sufferings. Proponents of this school are Dickens and George Bernard Shaw in English literature, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Harriet Beacher Stowe, Upton Sinclair and John Steinbeck in American literature, Balzac, Stendhal, Flaubert and Victor Hugo in French, Goethe, Schiller and Erich Maria Remarque in German, Cervantes in Spanish, Tolstoy, Gogol, Dostoevsky and Gorki in Russian, Premchand and Kabir in Hindi, Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyaya and Kazi Nazrul Islam in Bengali, Nazir, Faiz, Josh and Manto in Urdu. and the Bhaktikaal poets in Hindi literature.
In my opinion, in poor countries like India, where most people live miserable lives, it is only the second theory which is acceptable, as art and literature must help the Indian people in their struggle for better lives
Today, India is facing massive socio-economic problems. Literature should address these problems. The struggle which Kabir waged against narrow sectarianism, which Sharat Chandra waged against the caste system and women’s oppression, which Faiz waged against despotism, which Subramania Bharti waged for nationalism and women’s emancipation, which Dickens and Gorki waged against exploitation and social injustice – these are the matters which should be discussed at a literary and artistic festival. Instead, in all probabilit,y poor writers and poets, and shallow superficial 'thinkers' will dominate the festival.
Today, the Indian people are thirsty for good literature. But where is the Premchand or Sharatchandra or Faiz of today? Where is the Dickens and Victor Hugo of today?
When Maxim Gorki, the great Russian writer, used to step onto the streets of Russia, he used to be mobbed by the people because he was so much loved by the people as he wrote about their lives and sufferings.
Can an Indian writer or artist of today make the same claim ?
The truth is that today art and literature have been totally commercialised, and writers write only for making money, have no genuine concern for the people's sufferings, and have no desire to help them in their struggles for better lives, and for fighting against oppression. Such writers are out of touch with the people and live in a world of their own, only seeking money for themselves. It is no wonder that their art or writings are of no use.
It can safely be predicted that the Jaipur Literary Festival, 2026 will be another Much Ado About Nothing.
(Justice Markandey Katju is a former Judge of the Supreme Court of India, and former Chairman of the Press Council of India. The views expressed are his own.)
