Indian American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal opened the third Seattle edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) on 19 September 2026 with a forceful call to defend free expression, telling the audience at the Seattle Public Library that reading challenged books and amplifying silenced voices were acts of nonviolent resistance against censorship.

“In my mind, to read is the ultimate act of nonviolent resistance,” Jayapal said, framing the literary gathering as a direct response to what she described as mounting restrictions on speech, dissent, and democratic debate in the United States and beyond.

The Case Against Censorship

Jayapal pointed to specific titles that have faced restrictions in the United States, including Toni Morrison’s ‘The Bluest Eye’, ‘The Kite Runner’, ‘Milk and Honey’, and ‘The God of Small Things’. She argued that banning or challenging such works threatens fundamental freedoms and pledged to oppose such moves.

She also criticised the US president over an announcement that she said would bar CNN, MSNBC, and Politico from the White House, describing such actions as emblematic of a broader assault on civil liberties. “We intend to do everything in our power to reclaim our democracy and to refuse to allow our fundamental rights to be shut down,” she said.

Literature as Democratic Infrastructure

For Jayapal, the festival was more than a literary event — it was, she argued, a structural defence of democratic dialogue. “It critiques powerful institutions and it expands the boundaries of our dialogue and our thinking,” she said of literature. “It refuses to let anyone muzzle our imagination so that we can truly begin to share ourselves and our journey forward.”

Alongside voting and community organising, she urged attendees to keep reading, share their own experiences, and actively engage with stories from writers whose voices are being suppressed. “It is our home for exchanging ideas and for dreaming the impossible,” she said of the festival.

A Personal Story: Migration, Identity, and Writing

Jayapal’s remarks carried deep personal resonance. She recalled arriving in the United States alone at the age of 16, driven by her parents’ belief that the country would offer her opportunity and the freedom to be herself. Her path to US citizenship took 17 years.

Years later, she returned to India and spent two years living in villages, exploring her relationship with her birthplace and her sense of identity. That journey became her first book, ‘Pilgrimage to India: A Woman Revisits Her Homeland’, published by Seattle’s Seal Press and later by Penguin India. She also discussed her second book, ‘Use the Power You Have: A Brown Woman’s Guide to Politics and Political Change’, expressing hope that it could encourage women to recognise and exercise their own political influence.

Notably, Jayapal is the first Indian American woman elected to the US House of Representatives, and her personal narrative of migration and return to India has remained central to both her political identity and her writing.

JLF’s Global Footprint and Seattle’s Literary Scene

Jayapal welcomed the festival’s expansion beyond its Jaipur origins to the United States, Britain, Spain, the Maldives, and Australia, saying it had brought Indian and South Asian authors, filmmakers, and artists to new international audiences. She also celebrated Seattle’s independent bookshops, small presses, and writing community, describing them as essential to the city’s literary life and thanking festival organisers and the Seattle Public Library for hosting the event.

With book bans accelerating across multiple US states and press freedom concerns growing globally, the festival’s Seattle edition arrives at a moment when the intersection of literature, democracy, and dissent has rarely felt more urgent.