In this second part of the review of the London edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) 2024, the iGlobal columnist offers an overview of the highlights from the final day of an eclectic mix of sessions.
The second day of the Jaipur Literature Festival London began with an eclectic music performance by musicians Debasmita Bhattacharya and Gurdain Rayatt at the main entrance hall of the British Library. This demonstrated varied and dynamic nature of arts in Indian culture, while being a relaxing introduction to the morning’s events for the guests.
A session entitled How the World Made the West: Josephine Quinn In Conversation with William Dalrymple proved an insightful exploration of history. Quinn is a prominent historian and archaeologist, and a Professor at the University of Oxford, while Dalrymple (also a Jaipur Festival Co-Director) is a historian who partly resides in India and specialises in the history and art of the Indian subcontinent.
Quinn explored briefly her new book, ‘How the World Made the West’, which fundamentally questions the idea of civilisations. She argued that the concept of civilisations came to prominence during the Imperial era in the West, in the 19th century when the idea of the West as the prime civilizational centre dominated. Of course, this concept was often misused by the political power centres in the West as a justification for colonialism. Needless to say, the after-effects of colonialism linger on in pernicious ways around the world.
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The advances of the West did not emerge in a vacuum, as Quinn noted and there were many influences on Western culture originating globally. For example, the so-called Arabic numeral system, which actually came from India, so they are technically the Indian numeral system. This allowed maths and engineering in both the Middle East and the West to advance substantially on the base of Indian knowledge. The theme was that historical progress was founded on global connections rather than regional civilisations, Quinn compared society to ‘a bed of flowers’ in need of pollination, meaning that ideas needed to be spread constantly via connections to ensure progress.
Another interesting discussion was on the geopolitical challenge of conflict in the modern world. The programme was entitled Multipolar Disorders: Gideon Levy, Salma Dabbagh and Shashank Bengali in conversation with Vikas Swarup. Levy is a prominent Israeli journalist who has been covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for years, Salma Dabbagh is a British-Palestinian fiction novelist from London. Shashank Bengali is a senior correspondent and war reporter at ‘The New York Times’ while Vikas Swarup is a former Indian diplomat and novelist.
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Part of the discussion was a new model of opportunism by state actors seeking to challenge the international system, as the ‘rules-based order’ created by the West after World War II begins to break down. There were extensive discussions on the humanitarian impacts of both the ongoing Middle East conflict as well as the Russia-Ukraine War, and the need for the West to treat them equally. The question of whether Brexit was the beginning of the reversal of globalisation was also pondered.
Both programmes gave much food for thought on both the historical context and current geopolitical state of our world, in addition to the morning music programme which showed the ability of the Jaipur Literature Festival to both inform and entertain.
*Info: JLF London
