The Empire Writes Backwards: Jaipur Literature Festival and the Business of Cultural Fraud
✍️ Written by Saket Suman
At the Colorado edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) in the United States, a well-dressed panel sat beneath stage lights, bathed in the glow of literary performance. The session’s title, projected grandly behind them, read: “Water, Water Everywhere, But Not a Drop to Drink.”
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| JLF: PhD in Fakery. Via Sanjoy Roy on X |
It’s nor, not not.
This is a classic metaphor for what JLF has become: a festival of posturing without precision, of quotation without comprehension. It’s a stage where the most revered lines in English literature are mangled in broad daylight -- and no one even notices. Or worse, no one cares.
Because for the gatekeepers of this literary cartel, literature is merely a prop. A backdrop against which their curated elites, their sons, their friends, and their sponsors perform. And the audience -- you -- are expected to clap, sip wine, and post stories.
But know this: you’re not attending a literary celebration. You’re attending a well-funded scam.
Nepotism in the Age of Hashtags
JLF markets itself as the largest free literary festival in the world. What it really is: the most exclusive gated community in Indian publishing.
At the helm is a trio of cultural monopolists -- Sanjoy K. Roy, William Dalrymple, and Namita Gokhale -- who have systematically converted India's democratic literary society into a dynastic throne. The rules are simple: If you are not in the circuit, you will never be on the stage. If you dissent, you will be hit with targeted monopoly.
Take Sam Dalrymple, son of William. With no proven track record, no public struggle, no literary baptism -- Sam was launched with full spectacle, straight into JLF London, backed by state funds and institutional favors. His surname was his scholarship. His father his passport. He didn’t walk the path. He was chauffeured down it.
What would have taken a regular Indian author years of hustling, heartbreak, and humble submission, Sam received on a silver panel -- complete with applause and podcast slots and paid reviews and fatherly favours by old pals.
JLF doesn’t discover talent. It inbreeds it. Empire's favourite child, Daddy Dalrymple, after all, was an intern at Mother Teresa's residence and in the decades that followed, he was catapulted to write the Indian history, now the empire is creating a legacy for the generation next.
This is the real nature of deep state that targets the very soul of India by planning the next decade in advance, by placing intellectual warriors and training parliamentarians.
The Literary Fumble Heard Around the World
But it’s not just the nepotism. It’s the rotting standards.
Let’s rewind to the 2023 Jaipur closing debate. On stage: seasoned diplomat and JLF veteran Pavan K. Varma. Confident, composed, and clearly convinced of his rhetorical flair, he thundered: “Politics is the last refuge of the scoundrel.”
The crowd roared. But the literate among them flinched.
Because the line, attributed to Samuel Johnson, is: “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”
Again, not a minor slip. This is JLF’s grand finale. Its most visible intellectual moment. And nobody -- not the moderators, not the audience, not the organisers -- corrected him.
It was again a metaphor. It exposed JLF’s intellectual emptiness: a festival more obsessed with the performance of knowledge than the pursuit of it.
They love the sound of quotes -- just not the truth behind them.
A Historian Caught Stealing History
And what of William Dalrymple, the festival’s co-founder and empire’s favorite historian? A man who has spent his career writing about the thefts of colonialism -- only to now practice the same.
In a recent post that went viral, Dalrymple shared an image of a stunning Greek royal tomb mosaic. The image, however, wasn’t his. It belonged to Araldo de Luca, shot for National Geographic. Dalrymple gave no credit.
Why should he? He’s used to owning what isn’t his -- India’s stories, India’s past, and now, its aesthetics.
Dalrymple has built an empire by curating India for foreign palates, feasting on colonial archives and vernacular writers who were never heard while masquerading as an anti-imperial voice. His feed is a colonial museum and Indian archives -- polished, performative, and pilfered.
When a historian steals history, what is left of integrity?
Paid Hypocrisy: When Sponsors Write the Script
JLF thrives on grants, embassy partnerships, and Western institutional backing. But its ideological compass is available for rent.
In 2019, the head of the Frankfurt Book Fair, Juergen Boos, stood on JLF’s stage and condemned the rising violence against Indian journalists and publishers -- invoking the murders of Gauri Lankesh and Shujaat Bukhari. The festival organisers could not stop feeding the journalists on how well Juergen spoke and why it was important for Indians to understand the depth of his words.
The words rang powerful. But they changed nothing.
Because six years later, JLF is still performing activism on cue, still selectively outraged, and still curating its crises based on who is cutting the cheque.
Look at what happened just this week.
On September 10, 2025, an Indian-origin man, Chandramouli Nagamallaiah, was beheaded in Dallas in front of his wife and son. The suspect, covered in blood, dumped his severed head in a bin. The story was reported worldwide. The murder was racially and politically charged.
And JLF organisers? Still in the U.S. Still tweeting about Gaza. Still sipping wine at the Boulder Public Library, whose taxpayer dollars hosted their free speech panels.
Not one word. Not one.
Because grief only matters when it flatters their narrative. Because tragedy only counts when it's fashionable. And because speaking against the lawlessness in United States while feeding on its sponsorships would be bad business.
JLF’s politics are clearly purchased.
Fake Intellectualism for Sale
Today, JLF sells itself as an incubator of ideas. In truth, it is an assembly line of anointed mediocrities.
Each year, they announce hundreds of “diverse voices.” But the spotlight stays the same. The “new talent” often includes family friends, co-hosts, and business allies.
Take Anita Anand, a frequent speaker whose literary credentials are eclipsed by her podcast connection with Dalrymple. Yes, the same podcast that built its brand through JLF PR and went over the top to boost Sam Dalrymple's book with not even pretense of legitimacy or fair play. Or Smriti Irani, who came armed with fiction sold as fact -- and was treated with reverence instead of rigour.
When someone tried to correct Irani’s fabrications, they were silenced -- accused of “bossing around.” At JLF, truth is rude. Correction is “aggression.” Dissent is “bad vibes.”
Meanwhile, young readers -- students, aspiring writers, and impressionable thinkers -- are left believing that access equals ability, and that being published is the same as being profound.
What they are building is a fake intellectual class, trained to quote but not question, to perform but never protest.
The York Conspiracy: Cronyism in Cap and Gown
In 2023 and more recently this year, a peculiar scene unfolded in the halls of the University of York.
Sanjoy K. Roy, William Dalrymple, and Namita Gokhale — the holy trinity of JLF — all received honorary degrees. Not for scholarship. Not for publishing. Not for impact.
They received those degrees for access. Because months later, York announced a brand-new campus -- in Mumbai. Licenses were granted, land approved, partnerships inked -- all at record speed.
The message was clear: India is open for business, and JLF is the broker, the dalal.
This was reimbursement. York got India. The trio got validation. And Indian writers? They got left behind -- again.
This Is Not a Festival. It’s a Front.
JLF is a private business, run like a cultural cartel, cloaked in NGO language and yoga-English aesthetics. One day, it hosts Smriti Irani. The next, it celebrates democracy. One day, it platformed voices that cheered authoritarianism. The next, it flirts with Western liberals.
Its ideology shifts like Sanjoy's kurta -- always clean, always photogenic, always ready for the next funding cycle. They are middlemen of empire, and you, dear audience, are the currency.
🖤 Literature, They Never Loved You
Don’t be fooled by their hashtags. Or their lanyards. Or their pastel-coloured pamphlets.
They do not love literature. They love legacy, visibility, and control.
They have erased thousands of icons like Geetanjali Shree and Banu Mushtaq for years -- until the West told them to look again. They platform their own, quote others, and banish those who question them.
Even their debates -- once the jewel of JLF -- are now soundbite pageants, where ill-informed men and women are cheered as scholars.
They’re not here for the truth. They’re here for the throne.
Raise Your Voice Or Raise Their Profits
So go ahead. Attend. Applaud. Post your #JLF photo under that dusty banyan tree.
But understand what you're celebrating. You’re not part of a literary movement. You’re fueling a monopoly. You are not in the room because of merit -- you’re in the audience because you didn’t challenge it.
And every time you clap for a plagiarist, a nepotist, or a coward, you help bury the voices who actually deserve the mic.
Jaipur Literature Festival is a fraud -- and you’re paying for it.
(Saket Suman is the author of The Psychology of a Patriot. Among other roles, he was a Special Correspondent at The Times of India and the head of Arts/Books/Culture verticals of what was India's largest independent newswire.)
(Views Expressed Are Author's Own and Do Not Reflect The Views of This News Outlet)