Poet returns state Akademi award

Tribune News Service

Rohtak, October 16

Noted Hindi poet scholar Manmohan, who had been honoured with the Mahakavi Surdas Samman by the Haryana Sahitya Akademi for the year 2007-08, has returned the award as well as the accompanying cash prize of Rs1 lakh to the akademi.

He is the first writer from Haryana to return his award.

In a letter to the akademi authorities, Manmohan has maintained that the current trend of “curbing the voices of dissent and freedom of expression, which was evident in the recent murders of intellectual-writers Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and M.M.Kalburgi” was disturbing.

“An atmosphere of communal polarisation, hate crimes, insecurity and violence is getting denser in the country and people occupying constitutional posts as well as political leaders seem to be promoting/patronising it. Several writers and artists have recently returned their akademi awards and prizes in protest against the prevailing situation. I am also returning the award to the Haryana Sahitya Akademi,” the writer states in the letter.

Manmohan has also returned Rs1 lakh which he received from the akademi along with the award though he had donated the prize money received from the akademi to the Haryana Gyan-Vigyan Samiti. He has also sent the shawl, citation and memento received as part of the said award to the akademi.