Jnanpith awardees support writers action to return awards, 6 more join list

The Sahitya Akademi does not represent the government.

Even as I see the next author resigning or returning their award, I am reminded of writer James Rozoff, who said, “Sheep only need a single flock, but people need two: one to belong to and make them feel comfortable, and another to blame all of society’s problems on”.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday flayed the NDA Government for failing to pacify the nation’s literary icons who have returned their Sahitya Akademi awards.

West Bengal Governor K.N. Tripathi, however, accused writers returning the awards of being politically motivated. We just follow what others do. The condition to receiving the award should be that once received, the recipient, under no circumstance, is allowed to go back on the covenant that is established between the Akademi and the recipient – that the former is the giver and the latter is the receiver.

Joining the bandwagon of writers and poets protesting the “growing intolerance” in the country, Kannada writer, Prof Rahamat Tarikeri, has returned his Sahitya Akademi award in protest against the killing of scholar M M Kalburgi and rationalists Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare.

“I hope you will give this country the assurance that it is the writers and thinkers who have come forward to rescue sense, good-will, values, tolerance and mutual respect in all past ages”.

Although the protest by Sahitya Akademi awardee writers is sending a message, it doesn’t seem to be enough given how the administration is dismissing it as a political stunt.

Chandrasekhar Patil returned the highest literary award given by the Karnataka government, the Pampa award, in protest against this “vicious attack on freedom of expression”.

At least 40 writers and authors have received the Sahitya Akademi award for their works in Kashmiri, prominent among them the poet Rehman Rahi, Ghulam Nabi Firaq, and historian MY Taing.

Bengali writers Shirshendu Mukherjee, Shankho Ghosh, Shamaresh Basu were critical of returning the awards. Once one does, the others start following the same.

She said a Muslim man’s lynching in a Uttar Pradesh village over rumours that he ate beef and attacks on writers across the country were the direct reasons for her decision to return the honour.

Tripathi further added, “How it is that none of them were prompted then to return the award earlier and why now?”