‘It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white as long as it kills mice’

The great left-right divide that riles India took the spotlight at the biggest literary stage on the closing day of the Jaipur Literature Festival 2023. While panelists argued if the ‘Right and Left Divide Can Never Be Bridged,’ scholar and author Vandana Shiva’s thoughts summed up the essence of the closing debate: “Pure simple physics will show you that left and right can never meet.” 

Writer-diplomat and politician Pavan K Varma, on the other hand, said that the concept was a Western one. “The left and right is a Western idea. In India, we believe that the world is one family!” he said. But he also said that it was nonetheless dividing nations. “I have seen the way countries with governments from the left behave even worse than countries governed by the right,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white as long as it kills mice,” Varma said, condemning all kinds of communal violence.

The closing debate, which was hosted by author and journalist Vir Sanghvi, also saw the participation of Rajya Sabha member Jawhar Sircar, literary historian Purushottam Agarwal, recipient of the Alternative Nobel Prize, Shiva; poet and novelist Makarand R Paranjape, and Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi.

“The politics of hate and fear and the politics of divide and rule play against the economic betterment of those who need the most support. Pure simple physics will show you that left and right can never meet,” Shiva said, speaking in favour of the argument. 

“India is pragmatic, the India construct ensures that you need to seek a middle path, hoping for the best results for its people,” Chaturvedi said. “It is unfair to box people in India as left and right. We need to get them out of the box. We need to work together to ensure the larger good of the people,” she argued, opposing the subject of the debate. “The left and the right construct do not apply to the Indian governance model. India has its own construct; in a diverse social setup like ours, it is not a choice,” she added. 

Paranjape called it a debate between ‘right and wrong,’ arguing that violence and human rights violations have also taken place under ‘leftist’ regimes, and there is a need to work towards doing the ‘right’ things, not the ‘wrong’.  

“The two spheres are incommensurable. They cannot meet unless you change the terms of the debate unless you change the parameters,” Shiva added. 

The 16th edition of JLF was held at Hotel Clarks Amer from January 19-23.