Killing new talents, grabbing new comer girls and working for Islamist lobby , meet William Dalrymple, the Mahesh Bhatt of English literature in India.

He represents literature mafia in India.

Any talented Indian writer today would need to be both influential and old, if not dead, before he is read and formally recognised by Lit Fests, Big Publishers or the numerous other literary clubs.

The world of English literature in India is similarly full of vicious politicking, scandals and goondaism that plague the bollywood, the fortune and fame of many Indian writers are determined by a well-entrenched literary mafia represented by likes of William Dalrymple.

A society for mutual admiration, it is a close knit group of ‘established writers’ and writer-bureaucrats who lord over vast networks of patronage. Outsiders stand little chance of breaking into this circuit and stumble in either by default or for sheer want of a favourite in a particular category or language.

With the right combination of credentials and a little patience, one may get rich dividends in terms of awards, fellowships, consultancies, jury positions and appointments to library and book purchase committees. In the best traditions of backscratching, jury members are seen to nominate one another or their favourite writer bureaucrats and sundry camp followers for awards, while those on purchase committees ensure the sale of books by select authors and publishers.

First they write lies and sells propaganda and if at all anyone dares to write truth, this man will go to any extent to get that banned.

Killing writing talents and eliminating any signs of freedom of expression is hobby of this mafia.

In an April 2005 article in the New York Review of Books, he is all over the place, trashing Indian history and abusing Hindu nationalists, and just stops short of saying that India was better off under his ancestors.

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