The festival, which will be held from 26-28 January 2024 at Sattva Knowledge City, returns with its 14 edition. (Supplied)
“This is the Hyderabad Literary Festival, not Literature Festival,” says T Vijay Kumar, Festival Director of Hyderabad Literature Festival (HLF) 2024, before delving into the explanation behind the usage of the term literary.
The festival, which will be held from 26-28 January 2024 at Sattva Knowledge City, returns with its 14 edition.
“There is no single theme for any edition. We have a multidisciplinary approach since it’s not just literature. Films are also considered as text, so the meaning of literary is broad and that’s why we call it a literary festival,” shares Kumar.
Started in 2010, the HLF has emerged as an important event in the cultural calendar of the country. It represents the rich and cosmopolitan ethos of the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad, as well as the vibrant spirit of modern Cyberabad.
The HLF, which is held annually in the last week of January, is a multidisciplinary, multilingual event that draws over a hundred writers, artistes, academics, scholars, and publishers from India and abroad each year.
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The festival team comprises three directors — Amita R Desai, Dr Kinnera B Murthy, and T Vijay Kumar. The festival committee, which is advisory in nature ,is chaired by Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary for Industries & Commerce (I&C), and Information Technology (IT) Departments, Government of Telangana. The committee has other illustrious members including YV Reddy, Nandini Rao, Rammanohar Reddy, etc.
Started in 2010, the HLF has emerged as an important event in the cultural calendar of the country. (Supplied)
The core group, Kumar shares, largely consists of senior academics from the University of Hyderabad, faculties from EFLU, amd APU.
In its first edition, in 2010, HLF was focused on one genre — poetry. “We had at least about 70 poets. It evolved and other genres came in and literature and art were also included. Literature, culture and art are the three core areas of the festival now,” he shares, adding that there are also art exhibitions at HLF where artists do live art shows.
One of the things that the festival lacked was a permanent venue.
In all its previous editions, it was held in different parts of the town because the team’s objective was to ensure that part was known to other parts of the city.
“This year, we have moved to the tech part of the city. And of course, the number of visitors has increased phenomenally,” he says.
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In the past 14 years, HLF’s unique feature has been the inclusion of one foreign country as a guest nation. Additionally, one local Indian language is given a special focus.
“The idea is to look outward and inward,” adds Kumar.
This year, the spotlight is on Odiya. “Also, from this edition, we have changed the term to country in focus. This year, Norway is the festival’s country in focus,” he adds.
HLF, Kumar says, is focused on exhausting on highlighting the significance of Indian languages. “We first began with Telugu and Urdu, which are the two major languages in Hyderabad. This was followed by Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, and Marathi etc. The idea is to exhaust the 22 languages in the Eighth Schedule,” he shares.
Till 2023, HLF had 12 independent streams as part of the schedule. This year, Climate Conversations, Science and City, and Indigenous and Endangered Languages are the three additions to the streams.
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Striving to be a green festival, every year, the team spends its efforts in minimising the use of flexi and plastic, while encouraging visitors to use the Metro instead of driving to the festival venue. Visitors are also urged to bring their bottles to avoid the use of plastic on the festival premises.
“We have always tried to be environment-friendly. But we realised it’s not enough to have just one or two sessions in the entire festival. We wanted to give climate conversations an independent stream status,” Kumar tells South First.
Similarly, the focus is always on one Indian language. “We have always had sessions on minority languages, marginalised languages etc. So we gave it an independent stream status in this edition of the festival,” he adds.
The third stream, Science and the City, brings science and scientists from places like CPMB, TIFR etc. who are keen to make science accessible to ordinary people.
“They are trying to popularise science. Science is there in our everyday life, but we need to understand it. Very few scientists can make it easily understandable to non-specialists. This is one way in which we can bring an exclusive subject like science into a popular place like the literary festival. For example, why do we cry? How do you know what is the meaning of tears both medically and emotionally,” Kumar details.
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Between 1950 and 2010, 230 languages went extinct, according to the UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger. Worried, Kumar and his team are using the festival as a platform to spread awareness about the dangers of language extinction.
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“Unfortunately, languages cannot be preserved like monuments.
The indigenous languages are also endangered, and that is why we are calling this stream indigenous and endangered languages,” he says.
Languages die because people stop using them or only use them for specific purposes. So, their knowledge production in those languages shrinks, Kumar notes.
He is worried that the knowledge produced and stored in those languages is becoming inaccessible to everyone.
“For example, the knowledge that is available in Gondi or Koya is slowly disappearing because they are not considered mainstream. These languages do not have livelihood opportunities. When a language dies, an entire repository of knowledge dies. Everyone talks about the endangerment of species, climate etc. but no one talks about language endangerment,” he laments.
Underscoring the cultural identity Dakhni language, Kumar notes that Dakhni is neglected in favour of Urdu.
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“Dakhni predates Urdu. Now Urdu is losing out to Hindi. Urdu is one of the two languages which has shown a decline in the last census report. Why does Urdu or any language die? Because the official status becomes withdrawn. When Urdu took over the dominance of Dakhni, Dakhni was considered a backward language. But actually, Dakhni is older than Urdu,” he explains.
Giving details about the inclusion of a session on articulating Adivasi voices, Kumar says, “We have one session on two biographies of Droupadi Murmu, the President of India. One is written in English and the other in Santhali. We are putting the two writers together to discuss their findings about a tribal woman’s background in her rise to the status of President of India.
The idea is to celebrate linguistic diversity — whether is Dakhni, or Banjara, Lambada, Koya or Kui. “More languages does not mean a disorganised society,” he signs off.
The Hyderabad Literature Festival will be held from 26-28 January, 2024 at Sattva Knowledge City, HITEC City.
Timings: 10 am-9 pm
Register here
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