After three writers had reportedly withdrawn from the New York event of the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) over the presence of Shazia Ilmi, a national spokesperson for the BJP, a group of protesters disrupted the event on Wednesday.
With her acknowledging the demonstrators saying she too was a Muslim woman, the agitators declared Bilkis Bano is also a Muslim woman as are the thousands of Muslim women who have never seen justice for the crimes the BJP has committed.
Sana Qutubuddin with No Separate Justice, said to Maktoob that she has never seen a BJP official so shaken describing Shazia Ilmi visibly squirming in her seat in real time when Qutubuddin asked how the bribery money was treating her and that she’s betrayed all Muslim women.
At one point during her talk Shazia Ilmi acknowledged that there were Muslim women protesting the event outside and that she too was a Muslim to which the protesters responded that “all you represent to us is genocide and a deep betrayal. We don’t need your indentity politics.”
“We were there to get back to the basics and remind everyone what fascism actually looks like. This festival wanted to pretend it can invite Shazia Ilmi to show the BJP has become respectable and hip and cultured and enlightened, instead of a genocidal project built on razing all of India’s non-Hindu communities and cultures to the ground, and we will always show up to say it will never be,” Safia Albaiti with Muslim Women Kreate, one of the protest organizers said.
“No cultural event in New York can hide the shame and truth that India is governed by a fascist party and ideology,” Albaiti asserted.
Reacting to the incident, Ilmi tweeted: “the chorus of the protesters grew louder as they flashed placards against India! And against this very telling backdrop of hate, I spoke of the necessity to bury hatred within and without. I will not allow ‘borrowed hate and mortgaged rage’ to come between my truth and theirs!”
The JLF is the world’s largest free literature festival and holds events outside of India such as the one in New York from 12-14 September.
 over the presence of Shazia Ilmi, a national spokesperson for the BJP, a group of protesters disrupted the event on Wednesday.){kind=link}