Authors get vocal over ‘silence on INTOLERANCE’
SELECTIVE OUTRAGE? Many in UP, while agreeing to the writers’ right to express protest, are wondering if the protests smack of politics
LUCKNOW: 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, while agreeing to the writers’ right to express protest are wondering if the protests in their present form smacked of politics. So, is the script indeed political and do the protests reflect selective outrage? In fact, with the literary debate sinking to a new low and with writers being asked to return the award money along with the awards too, many like poet Gopal Das Neeraj, the present head of the UP Bhasha Sansthan, want to steer clear of the controversy.
Achala Nagar, daughter of Sahitya Akademi award winning author Amrit Lal Nagar, politely offers a parallel thought, a view that also found favour with Chetan Bhagat - wouldn’t it have been better had the literati used their pen to highlight their frustration through their literary creations rather than pen resignations and return awards?
“Writers should use their pen to express protests and anger,” says Nagar on phone.
Athar Nabi, secretary of the Lucknowbased Hindi Urdu Sahitya Award Committee, builds on the are-the-protestspolitical theory. “Be it Sahitya Akademi or Padma Shri, the winners should never indulge in politics and use their pen to express themselves,” he says.
In a rather harsh summing up, he describes the resignations and awardreturning gestures as “popularity-seeking attempts.”
There is another fear flagged by people like Padma Shri Giriraj Kishore who feel that the spate of resignations from Sahitya Akademi may lead to the government dissolving the literary body and reconstitute it in a manner that suits it.
Poet Sohail Kakorvi, who founded Adabi Sansthan, says no one can snatch a writer’s power to wield the pen - as they want and against anyone. “But I don’t understand why one should return the awards? After all, the awards come after great toil and by returning them one is bound to get dragged in politics. I would have much preferred poets penning their frustration to force the government to end its silence on the frenzy, both communal and otherwise that seems to have gripped many parts of the country,” he says. Akademi chief Vishwanath Tiwari, who has convened an emergency meeting of the literary body, has already denounced the move of the writers to return their awards. Naresh Saxena, winner of several coveted awards for his works in Hindi says, “The behaviour of the authors is obvious. All writers should unite and fight for the rights of their fellow writers.” Eminent Urdu poet Munawwar Rana, winner of Sahitya Akademi Award, supports the protest but disagrees with the method. “It may be right for them, but I would have staged protest differently,” he says.