A bridge across languages

Sarika Sharma

In the 70-year history of Sahitya Akademi, Madhav Kaushik is the second Hindi writer to rise to the level of the vice-president. This, for the Chandigarh-based poet, is a befitting reply to those who often pitch Hindi against non-Hindi languages. His recent election, where 50 of the 60 non-Hindi writers voted for him, holds testimony to the fact. Kaushik says this also clears the myth of a lingual divide in India. He likes to call this a personal achievement.

His new role expects him to be the bridge between various Indian languages. He wants to bring people closer to literary works from across the lengths and breadths of the country. So while the writer hailing from Haryana would want to bring more seminars to the region, he knows his people are not reading as much as those from Bengal, Uttar Pradesh or even Bihar. “You have to visit a book fair in a city of Bihar to realise how much people there are reading. They go back with bags full,” he tells.

Blame the new generation for lack of love for reading and Kaushik, whose works have been translated into various Indian languages, refuses to uphold the popular sentiment. “Youth are reading on Kindle, on phones. You never know, they might be reading more than us! The spectrum has widened so much,” he says. This has forced the Akademi to enter e-publishing. Kaushik feels the digital presence would help the Akademi reach where not many have been able to make it — the outside world. “That is where we lack. Indian litterateurs must reach out to international readers,” says Kaushik.

That giant leap is yet to be taken, but before that, we take him back to 2015, a time when writers had begun returning their Sahitya Akademi awards to protest against the rising levels of intolerance in the country. The count was 39, when last reported in 2017. The Akademi was shamed. Writers had expressed their anguish at the Akademi’s silence over killing and gagging of authors across the country thus.

Kaushik feels the writers were wrong in blaming the Akademi. He vouches for the institution’s autonomy. “Never has a politician or a statesman been invited to the Akademi’s function. We are an organisation of the authors, for the authors and by the authors.”

However, he feels that a writer should be the mouthpiece of the society and should not be writing about his own ideology. “If you limit your writing to a particular ideology, it will hamper your creativity,” he says. To the authors, Kaushik, says, “They must uphold the literary values established by this prestigious institution. Only a liberated author can liberate the society.”