The Story
OrganizerIndia has 22 scheduled languages and hundreds of others. Its literary culture is vast, multi-directional, and for the most part invisible to readers outside any given language community. A Tamil reader rarely encounters Assamese fiction; a Hindi reader may be entirely unaware of Manipuri poetry. The mainstream Indian literary festival circuit, despite its growth, has tended to be predominantly English-language in its programming and reputation.
Samanvay was conceived at the India Habitat Centre in 2011 as a direct response to this situation. The IHC, a cultural institution on Lodhi Road in New Delhi that had been bringing together individuals and institutions across domains since 1993, provided both the infrastructure and the institutional identity for a festival that would treat all Indian languages as equally valid, equally present, and equally worthy of celebration.
The festival's name, Samanvay, means confluence or coordination in Sanskrit and several Indian languages, and the choice is deliberate. The festival is not about any single language or tradition; it is about the encounter between them. Sessions bring together authors from Kannada, Punjabi, Gujarati, Odia, Bengali, and Urdu in the same room, mediated by translation, interpretation, and the willingness to listen across linguistic difference.
Samanvay has hosted some of the most celebrated voices in Indian literature across its editions: Vinod Kumar Shukla (Hindi), Ambai (Tamil), Manglesh Dabral (Hindi), Meena Kandasamy (Tamil/English), and Kutti Revathi (Tamil). The annual awards, including the Bhasha Samman and the translator's Vani Award, are among the few literary prizes that recognise work across Indian languages with equal weight.
Samanvay is structurally necessary. India's linguistic plurality is one of its most extraordinary cultural resources and one of its most poorly celebrated. The festival insists that this plurality is an asset rather than a problem, and its multi-year track record of bringing together writers, translators, and readers across 20+ Indian languages in a single Delhi institution has made it the most consistent platform of its kind in the country.
Samanvay is more necessary than ever at a time when the visibility of Indian-language writing is growing internationally but the domestic platforms that celebrate it remain few. Its awards for translators and multilingual journalists recognise work that no other major Indian literary prize addresses.
Founded India's only annual pan-Indian-languages literary platform. Created awards for translation (Vani Award), outstanding literary contribution (Bhasha Samman), and Indian-language journalism. Hosted celebrated authors from 20+ Indian languages for 14 editions.
