Punjabi writer Ajmer Singh Aulakh returns Sahitya Akademi award

Popular writer and Kendra Sahitya Akademi Award victor Sarah Joseph on Saturday said she would return the award to protest the lynching of a Muslim in Uttar Pradesh over rumours that he ate beef.

Bhullar said ‘he was perturbed by the attempts to disrupt the social fabric of the country.

“Sahitya Akademi is not a government organisation”.

Punjabi author Waryam Sandhu and Kannada translator G N Ranganatha Rao said they have intimated to the Akademi their decision to give back their awards.

Targetted attacks against minorities and rising intolerance has prompted six more authors including Khyal to return Sahitya Akademi Award. Tarikere, in his letter to the regional secretary of the Akademi, expressed displeasure over the Akademi not making any statement condemning Kalburgi’s killing.

“Killing of personalities like Kalburgi, (Govind) Pansare and incidents like Dadri lynching are an attack on the Constitutional rights in this country”.

Delivering another blow to the Akademi, Kannada writer Aravind Malagatt resigned from the body’s general council on Sunday.

In occupied Kashmir, noted Kashmiri writer and senior journalist, Ghulam Nabi Khayal has said that he will return the prestigious Sahitya Akademi award in protest against increasing communalization and violence by Hindu extremists inside India and across Jammu and Kashmir.

Prominent Malayalam writer and Aam Aadmi Party Kerala State convenor Sara Joseph has joined the bandwagon of writers protesting against the rising right-wing intolerance and fascist tendencies being propagated across the country. “He [Kalburgi] was killed and the Akademi did not even send a condolence message to his aggrieved family, let alone express concern about the violent suppression of all dissenting voices”. A writer can’t keep quiet. Sahitya Akademi President Vishwanath Prasad Tiwari had said that the institution was committed to the core secular values enshrined in the Constitution of India. Krishna Sobti, now 90, returned her Sahitya Akademi fellowship saying that India needed no more “Dadris and Babris”.

“We appeal to the Writers’ Community to come forward and protect the dignity of Sahitya Akademi”, Tiwari said. As of now only three writers have returned the prize money and plaques and the rest have intimated us of their intention through e-mail or post. “People from the fields of literature and culture are being targeted in an orchestrated manner”.

Aulakh said: “Drama is the highest form of human expression”.