AMN
Three Punjabi writers and two other renowned authors from Gujarat and Delhi – on Sunday joined the brigade of other eminent writers in the country who have returned their Sahitya Akademi Awards.
They were protesting against the government’s “onslaught on freedom of expression and secularism” .
Playwrights Ajmer Aulakh and Atamjit and Canada-based Waryam Sandhu joined the dissenters in the literary fraternity who have either surrendered their coveted awards or quit the Akademi in protest against what they said “rising intolerance” in the backdrop of the murders of noted rationalists as well as the Dadri lynching incident.
Delhi-based Aman Sethi said he too was returning the Sahitya Award he got in 1993 as the “spirit of inquiry is clearly under threat”. Ganesh Devi, a leading author from Gujarat and a tribal rights activist, joined him.
In a letter addressed to Sahitya Akademi’s president professor Viswanath Pratap Tiwari and vice president Dr Chandrashekhar Kambar, Devy said he is returning the 1993 Sahitya Akademi Award which was conferred upon him in the category of books in English for his 1992 work ‘After Amnesia’.
“I do this as an expression of my solidarity with several eminent writers who have recently returned their awards to highlight their concern and anxiety over the shrinking space for free expression and growing intolerance towards difference of opinion,” reads letter of Devy, who is also a Padma Shri awardee and Unesco Linguapax laureate.
Delivering another blow to the Akademi, Kannada writer Aravind Malagatt resigned from the body’s general council on Sunday.
Many in the literary fraternity have of late raised their voices against the murders of Kannada writer and Sahitya Akademi Award winner MM Kalburgi and anti-superstition activists Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare — both from Maharashtra, questioning the government the Akademi’s silence.
“The great idea of India is based on a profound tolerance for diversity and difference. They far surpass everything else in importance. That we have come to a stage when the honourable Rastrapatiji (President Pranab Mukherjee) had to remind the nation that these must be seen as non-negotiable foundations of India should be enough of a reason for the Sahitya Akademi to act,” Devi said in a letter to Sahitya Akademi president Viswanath Pratap Tiwari.
For his part, Atamjit said he “is very upset over the incidents communal hatred in the country for the last some months”.
“It’s shocking for me to see that a democratic country such as India has turned so intolerant. People with democratic thinking such as Kalburgi and Dabholkar have been killed and our government has shown no concern to catch their murderers,” Atamjit, who received the award in 2007, said.
Their move came a day after Punjabi writer Gurbachan Bhullar said he too will return his award. Bathinda-born Bhullar, who is now based in Delhi, bagged the Sahitya Akademi Award for his 2005 book of short stories “Agni-Kalas”.
Bhullar said attempts were being made to disrupt the social fabric of the country. “People from the fields of literature and culture are being targeted in an orchestrated manner. This is disturbing me.”
Kannada writer Malagatti, who joined Shashi Deshpande as the second literary figure from Karnataka to snub the Sahitya Akademi, he said he was “shocked” at the silence of the country’s premier literary body over the killing of Kalburgi. Malagatti’s most acclaimed text is called Brahmana.
In the face of protests, Akademi president Tiwari came out with a statement saying the apex literary body stands for freedom of expression and condemns attack on any writer or artist anywhere. It asserted its commitment to the “core secular values” enshrined in the Constitution and the “right to life of all”.
On Saturday, eminent Malayalam writer Sarah Joseph and Urdu novelist Rahman Abbas too announced they will return the Sahitya Akademi awards and the Maharashtra State Urdu Sahitya Academy award, respectively.
On the same day, Malayalam writers K Satchidanandan, PK Parakkadavu and KS Ravikumar quit their posts in the Akademi in protest against the murder of Kalburgi in Dharwad.
Earlier this week, eminent writer Nayantara Sahgal and former Lalit Kala Akademi chairperson Ashok Vajpeyi had returned their Sahitya Akademi Awards to protest the “assault on right to freedom of both life and expression” in “growing intolerance” in the country.
Eminent Hindi writer Uday Prakash was the first to return his Sahitya Akademi award to protest Kalburgi’s murder.