Exclusive Interview
By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 8 Nov: The Valley of Words Literature and Arts Festival (VoW), held annually in Dehradun, has established itself as one of the premier literary festivals in the country. Over the past seven years, VoW has gathered writers in both English and Hindi, along with artists, critics, thespians, craftspeople, readers, and audiences, fostering a vibrant celebration of literature and the arts. The festival also features an annual Book Awards Ceremony and includes a variety of engaging events.
The festival was curated by Sanjeev Chopra during his tenure as an IAS officer, which culminated in his role as Director of the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA), before his retirement. Recently, Chopra was honoured with the Mahatma Award for his remarkable contributions through the Valley of Words initiative.
Although originally from the West Bengal cadre, Chopra spent several years in Uttarakhand as Secretary, Industries, where he played a crucial role in attracting significant investments from major industrial firms to the state. Born in 1961, he is a 1985 batch IAS officer and a former journalist.
Chopra is also a prolific writer and columnist, having contributed to the Garhwal Post since its early days as a weekly publication. His best-selling memoir, ‘Ten Thousand Crores – A Personal Memoir of Industrialisation of Uttaranchal’ (the state’s name prior to its renaming), featured extracts published as a regular column in the Garhwal Post. Additionally, his long-running weekly column, ‘Agri Matters’, was compiled into a book. Since retiring, Chopra has authored ‘We the People of the States of Bharat: The Making and Remaking of India’s Internal Boundaries’, a historical exploration of India’s state formation.
In an exclusive interview with Garhwal Post, Chopra shared insights about the Valley of Words Literature and Arts Festival. Here are some excerpts:
You have made a very smooth transition from the IAS to your second avatar as a writer and scholar? Please share your journey from an administrator to a writer.
Thank you for this question but let me say: I have always been a writer, and as old-time readers of GP may recall, I have been writing for this paper for over two decades—in fact, from the time it was a weekly journal. I do not recall any time in my life from my teens when I was not writing regularly. I was a Trainee Journalist with the Times of India, three days before I turned twenty-one, which gave me a good institutional platform to write.
As an administrator, I wrote reports, edited and updated gazetteers, and prepared background notes for speeches by Union Ministers, Chief Ministers and Governors, and cabinet notes. My columns have appeared in most national papers on a range of issues—from human rights to development interventions and governance issues. I kept my journal and wrote my books and academic articles. I have not completely abandoned administrative tasks—for running a literature festival with eight book awards and five verticals across the country, together with Iti Natya and Iti Nritya, involves very similar issues—raising resources, preparing budgets, ensuring compliance, and engaging with stakeholders. Yes, the scale has tilted towards research and writing, but I still have many administrative tasks at hand.
As a writer, your books have been very diverse in their range. When you were Secretary of Industries in Uttarakhand, you authored the book ‘Towards Thirty Thousand Crores’ about the growing investment in the new state of Uttarakhand. This was followed by ‘Food For Thought on Agribusiness’ and then by ‘We the People of the States of Bharat’. Which new book are you writing now?
Yes, our writings reflect our ‘current obsessions’. While in college, I wrote poetry, and my collection ‘Ecstasy’ was published while I was still in my teens. I did a Year Book for my subdivision in 1989, and a research paper on district administration in 1991. Later, at the Academy, I wrote extensively on rural development and cooperatives. As the RD Secretary of Uttarakhand, I wrote ‘Food for Thought’. When I joined as the Secretary of Industries, I recorded the challenges and triumphs of attracting investments to the state of Uttarakhand, and this was published as a memoir, ‘Ten Thousand Crores’. When I wrote my weekly column as Joint Secretary of Agriculture in the Government of India (also published in GP), the book came out as ‘AgriMatters’. Based on the maps received from the Survey of India, I wrote on the reorganisation of India’s internal boundaries during my term as the Director of the LBSNAA. Post my superannuation, I completed a 150,000-word biography of Lal Bahadur Shastri. This is likely to be published by Bloomsbury early next year.
Valley of Words has emerged as a leading arts and literature festival in the country over the last 7 years. It will soon be holding its 8th edition. Please share with us what has been lined up at the VoW festival this year?
We have all the award-winning authors in the eight categories, besides our verticals on science and technology curated by Rajendra Dobhal and on military history and strategy by Lt Gen PJS Pannu. We have lined up candid conversations on internal migration, demographic changes and security on India’s borders, the implications of UCC in Uttarakhand on the rest of India, the future of offline media, a roundtable of school principals, and a parliamentarians’ debate on foreign policy. We will have two Tribute sessions to pay homage to poet and media person Jaskiran Chopra and philosopher of science, Dhirendra Sharma. We have also on the cards twelve book launches besides the Mushaira, which as in previous years is organised and sponsored by Dr S Farooq. We also have a session on Rash Behari Bose by Tarun Vijay and the Salt March of Mahatma Gandhi. We also have performances by award-winning artists of Iti Nritya and Iti Natya, which we have organised with Yi of CII.
As a curator of one of the most successful literature festivals in the country, you get to read a lot of books. Can you tell me about the quality of writing in recent years?
I must say that the quality of writing—also reflected in the nominations we receive for our Book Awards—is simply superb. It is indeed very difficult to choose the best titles. I can certainly say that in the three categories that I am personally aware of—fiction, non-fiction, and translations from Bhashas of Bharat into English—the standard of the writing, the range of information, and the quality of editing and printing is far better than it was, say, ten years ago. Likewise for the writings for Young Adults, for I have read the reviews and seen the enactments at Daly College, Indore. The enactments by young children on illustrated books have made me aware that, unlike the fairy tales of charming princes and damsels in distress, we have stories that help children cope with issues like the aspirations of the girl child, the fallout of patriarchy, terminal illness in the family, issues related to the environment, and, of course, stories which are pure joy and fun.
Valley of Words has regularly promoted varied categories as far as awards are concerned, including awards in English Fiction and Non-Fiction, Hindi fiction and non-fiction, and translation categories from Indian languages to English and Hindi. In addition, the festival also awards works in writing for young adults and for children. As such, you have tried to bridge the language gap and generational gap as far as literature festivals are concerned. Please share with us how this came about in VoW?
The realisation that so much of our literature is being written in Hindi and the Bhashas of Bharat has been with me for quite some time. English language writing in India has many more platforms, and authors and publishers have deep pockets. Hindi and Bhasha publishers—with the exception of Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam—suffer from limited individual sales. To my mind, the prime focus of Hindi and Bhasha publishers on institutional sales has made it comparatively more difficult for individual writers. We have tried to address this gap. For the last several years, we have been holding the Hindi vertical during the Hindi fortnight, and from next year, we will try to take it to schools as well. The NEP is addressing this issue, and in our own way, getting the reviews of all books published in Hindi and English opens up many new vistas.
The intergenerational dialogue is extremely important for us. It is part of our vision statement. We address it by getting students to engage with the texts with a critical and nuanced lens, rather than outright adulation.
The success of VoW can be easily gauged by the fact that you have been felicitated with The Mahatma Award, in recognition of your contribution through Valley of Words in leaving an indelible impact on promoting writers, books, and literature. Please share with us your opinion about this recognition.
I am most humbled by the conferment of the Mahatma Award. My only claim to this is that VoW has tried to give space to Hindi and the Bhashas of Bharat, as well as the sessions we have organised on ecology and the environment. The Mahatma Awards are a wonderful initiative in the CSR and ESG space, and I must mention here that the pioneers of this award, Amit Sachdeva and Mugdha Arora, are also based in Dehradun.
Dehradun now has a plethora of festivals. What do you feel about it?
As I have stated earlier, and in many forums, ‘the more, the merrier’. One festival alone cannot make Dehradun the centre for literature and the arts. If we have a dozen specialised festivals, we can move UNESCO to give Dehradun the tag of a literary heritage city. This is my long-term vision for the city—it may take another decade, but I hope that all of us can collaborate, issue an annual calendar, and have better coordination and engagement with the participants. Each festival will have its own USP, and this will also help in better outreach. I don’t view other festivals as ‘competition’, but as co-travellers in the larger vision of strengthening and promoting literature. The focus of each of them is perhaps different. Our USP is that we are open access and encourage students and faculty from government schools and institutions to attend our sessions. We encourage our participants to engage with the authors both in the hall and in the exhibition halls and public spaces at the Festival.
Managing such a big festival with so many verticals and activities is a huge challenge. Please share something about the VoW Team.
I would like to give full credit to the Board and the Secretariat. Board members Rajendra Dobhal, Lt Gen PJS Pannu, Laxmi Shankar Bajpai, Jyoti Dhawan, and Shalini Rai head the Science & Technology, Military History and Strategy, and Hindi, Iti Natya and Iti Nritya verticals. Our logistics team is led by Shalini Dhanda, who provides complete attention to detail. Rashmi guides the volunteers, and Yauvanika gives the design aesthetic. The programme office is helmed by Tania, who, with her very able associates Shalini Butola, Sachin Chauhan, and Shailendra, keeps in touch with the authors, publishers, and knowledge institutions. The festival is managed by our merry band of volunteers Team VoW 2024 – Shrishti, Vivian, Sneha, Zehra, Ahana, Ashi, Navya, Vaishali, Kanishka, Niyati, Anjali, Sanskriti, Shiv, Hitesh, Arpit, Shraddha, Affan, Ayushi, Simerjit, Shailendra, Hammad, Jigyasa, Sheetal, Faiz, Niyati, Ayan, Nikita, Sachin, Mahika, Lakshika Bajaj, Shivang and Devang, they take care of everything from packing of gifts to escorting guests to stage setting and managing frayed tempers, when things don’t work as per the script.
But, finally, it’s a labour of love, and we all enjoy it to the hilt!
