Opposition against intolerance: Four writers back out of Bangalore Literature

Sahitya Akademi award-winning Malayalam novelist Sara Joseph, her daughter Sangeetha Sreenivasan, Kannada poet Arif Raja and writer T.K. Dayanand have informed the organisers of the December 5-6 literary event of their boycott decision. In an email to organisers, a copy of which is with ET, he says that his decision comes in the wake of fellow writers withdrawing from the festival to express disagreement against festival director Vikram Sampath’s public stand against writers returning awards and “leftist historians”.

Explaining the reason for their move in their letters to the fest organizers, the writers have taken exception to Sampath’s description of the writers returning awards as “neither intellectual nor academic in spirit”. “From friends who have participated in earlier editions, I have been told that the importance given to Kannada and Kannada writers is far from satisfactory in a festival conducted in Bengaluru”, he s “I feel hesitant to participate in a festival where the language in which I write and think is considered a mere local or regional language and is not given as much importance as English and Hindi literature”, he said.

Swamy adds he might have participated in the festival and aired his thoughts, but “we are living in a situation where there is…no sensitive understanding of what is being said”. “Once again I am sorry for the inconvenience caused to the organizers”, he said. In particular, he had questioned why no awards were returned when rationalists were killed and books were banned. His arguments are unilateral and puerile. This, in turn, has backfired with a host of writers backing out from being a part of the festival. Terming this a “sign of ignorance”, Raza reasoned that Tagore had returned his knighthood protesting the imperialist rule and Karanth had given back his Padmashree against the imposition of Emergency.

All four had about a month ago accepted the invitation to participate in the lit fest organised by Vikram Sampath, a city-based historian and himself a Sahitya Akademi award victor.

“I am for returning awards to protest injustices in society”. Not returning awards doesn’t make one reactionary.

In a letter, Dayananda T K said the pro-establishment stand militated against his support for writers who had returned the awards as a protest against rising incidents of intolerance.