Four Punjabi writers among 12 to return awards
New Delhi/Chandigarh, October 12
Twelve more authors — among them four Punjabi writers and poets, including eminent writer Surjit Patar — announced on Monday they would return their Sahitya Akademi awards against what they call growing intolerance in the country.
Pattar, Baldev Singh Sadaknama, Jaswinder and Darshan Buttar announced they were returning their awards as a mark of protest. Kashmiri writer Ghulam Nabi Khayal, Kannada writer-translator Srinath DN, Hindi authors Mangalesh Dabral and Rajesh Joshi also said they would send back their Sahitya awards.
Punjabi author Waryam Sandhu and Kannada translator GN Ranganatha Rao said they already informed the Akademi of their decision to return the literary honour.
"The communal poison is spreading in the country and the threat of dividing people looms large," writers have warned.
Delhi-based theatre artiste Maya Krishna Rao sent back her Sangeet Natak Akademi award to protest the Dadri lynching. The actor expressed her disappointment over the government's failure to "speak up for the rights of citizens".
As pressure on them to respond grew, the Sahitya Akademi called a meeting of its Executive Board on October 23.
Akademi President Vishwanath Prasad Tiwari said on Sunday the institution was “committed to the core secular values enshrined in the Constitution of India”.
Khayal said: "I have decided to return the award. The minorities in the country are feeling unsafe and threatened. They feel their future is bleak."
Srinath claimed the recent developments distressed him.
"In the place of the pen, there are now bullets being fired. Author Kalburgi was murdered and both the Centre and the state should quickly act against the offenders so that such an incident is not repeated in the future."
In their joint statement protesting the "silence" of the Akademi over the Kalburgi murder, Dabral and Joshi said: "For the past one year or so basic values of democracy, freedom of expression, freedom to live our lives according to our wishes are under attack by the forces of Hindutva, which is not acceptable. The Sahitya Akademi remains silent about the Kalburgi murder so many dangers our democracy is facing, the very fabric of democracy is under threat."
They said the Akademi should have opposed the killing of Kalburgi openly. "It was the duty of the Akademi to condemn the atmosphere in the country," he said.
When contacted, Akademi officials said not all writers who announced they would return their awards had informed them.
"Apart from writers Uday Prakash, G N Devy, Aman Sethi, Waryam Sandhu and translator G N Ranganatha Rao, we have not got any intimations about the writers returning their awards," an official said.
Joshi said they had sent they have written to the Akademi President and will soon be returning their prize money.
"The way country's atmosphere is being communalised is not good for the tradition of tolerance for which the nation is known," he said.
The poet and playwright said it was unprecedented to have so many writers return their awards.
Monday’s developments took the number of writers returning their awards to 16.
Salman Rushdie tweets support
Man Booker-winning author Salman Rushdie lent his support to the voices against the growing communal intolerance in the country.
"I support Nayantara Sahgal and the many other writers protesting to the Sahitya Akademi. Alarming times for free expression in India," Rushdie tweeted.
Eighty-eight-year-old Sahgal, niece of Jawaharlal Nehru, was among the first to register her protest against the Akademi's silence over growing attacks on free speech.
On Sunday, three Punjabi writers —Gurbachan Bhullar, Ajmer Singh Aulakh and Atamjit Singh — Ganesh Devy, a leading writer and tribal activist from Gujarat, and Kannada writer Kum Veerabhadrappa announced awards on Sunday they would return their.
Writer Shashi Deshpande and Kannada Dalit poet and writer Aravind Malagatti resigned from the Akademi’s General Council protesting the institution’s silence over Kalburgi’s murder and attacks on free speech.
Poet K Satchidanandan and short story writer PK Parakkadavu gave up their memberships to the institute citing, like Malagati, the Akademi’s lack of response to the growing attack on free-thinking writers. Authors Nayantara Sahgal, Ashok Vajpeyi and Sara Joseph have returned their Sahitya Akademi awards.
Urdu writer Rahman Abbas, who announced he would return the Maharashtra State Urdu Sahitya Akademi to protest the Dadri killing recently, said: "After the Dadri lynching, the Urdu writing community has been quite unhappy. Therefore, I decided to return the award. There are some other Urdu writers who also want to join the protest. It is time we stood up to the injustice surrounding us."
Kalburgi, 77, was shot dead by two men at his house in Dharwad, northern Karnataka — often considered the state's cultural capital — on August 30. Kalburgi’s murder came six months after progressive thinker, left wing politician and author Govind Pansare died of gunshots in Mumbai. The killings had been condemned as attack on free speech.
In August 2013, rationalist author from Maharashtra Narendra Dabholkar was shot dead in Pune when he was out for a morning walk. His killing, very much like Pansare’s, led police to believe there was a link.
Recently, 50 year-old Mohammed Akhlaq was beaten to death in Bishada village in Uttar Pradesh’s Dadri after romours that he had beef spread through the village. The incident caused outrage and evoked widespread condemnation. — Agencies
