WRITERS GET VOCAL OVER ‘SILENCE ON INTOLERANCE’

There is a growing disquiet in the literary world. Poets and authors are furiously penning resignations and returning their Sahitya Akademi awards against what they call the ‘growing intolerance’ in the country. Many in the literary fraternity have spoken against the murders of Kannada writer and Sahitya Akademi Award winner MM Kalburgi and anti-superstition activists Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare, questioning the Akademi’s silence. The lynching of a Muslim man in UP’s Bisada village by a mob following rumours that he slaughtered a calf and ate beef also triggered a wave of protests. But many in UP are wondering if the protests in their present form smacked of politics.

KANPUR: Noted litterateur, Padma Shri Dr Giriraj Kishore has urged writers to not surrender awards and honours given by the Sahitya Akademi to protest against the academy’s failure for not taking up a stand against the murders of progressive writers and rationalists. Kishore said that the act would be counterproductive.

“The government would get an opportunity to dissolve the existing academy and reconstitute it as they like,” he said, voicing his fears. He urged writers to instead protest strongly like the students of FTII, Pune.

“Surrendering awards can be taken as a grudge against the elected chairman of the academy,” he added, explaining that he had spoken to the chairman of the academy, Vishwanath Prasad Tiwari, who agreed that he had made a mistake by not speaking up. Kishore advised writers to demand the removal of the existing chairman, “who had failed to keep up the lofty ideals of the academy, set by its founder Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.”

He said it was easy to get an organisation dissolved but very difficult to recreate it. Kishore also voiced fears that a fate similar to Lalit Kala Akademi’s may befall the Sahitya Akademi too, with the government ending its autonomy and taking up the right to appoint its chairman.