Literary world seems divided over the issue

ALLAHABAD: The literary world seems to be divided over authors returning their awards in protest against ‘rising intolerance and communal temperatures’. A majority of them uphold the mode of protest while a few think that the ‘Soldiers of Pen’ should push their views across with ink instead of returning awards, which is unnecessarily giving rise to controversy.

“When an awarded author is killed, the Sahitya Akademi chooses to maintain absolute silence while politicians on news channels keep on politicising the issue. This is very unfortunate.

Writers are feeling dejected at this gesture of the Akademi hence they have decided to return their awards which is an absolutely correct way to register their protest,” says eminent litterateur Ravindra Kalia, recipient of Sahitya Bhushan Samman and Premchand Smriti Samman of UP Hindi Sansthan.

Similarly, noted litterateur and recipient of Bharat Bharti award for his works, Doodhnath Singh is also convinced that returning of awards by authors is a gesture which would shame the Sahitya Akademi for its silence on the murder of Kannada writer MM Kalburgi.

“The Sahitya Akademi has kept mum over the issue and not even organised a condolence meeting for the writer. Akademi’s chairman Vishwanath Prasad Tiwari even failed to give a statement on it. All awardees from different languages who have received awards from the Akademi should return the same along with the prize money as a mark of protest,” adds Singh.

As per the eminent writer, authors like Kashinath Singh, Arun Kamal, Kedarnath Singh, Namwar Singh, etc should return their awards and support the protest.

Eminent poet Yash Malaviya also feels that the Sahitya Akademi’s attitude deserves nothing less than litterateurs returning their awards. “The Akademi, one hand accords recognition to literary work, while on the other hand does not even hold condolence meet for an eminent author whose works were recognised by the Akademi itself,” says Malaviya.

However, city-based poet Dr Shlesh Gautam has a different take on the issue. As per the poet who was recently awarded the Dr Harivansh Rai Bachchan award for his works, says returning awards will create a new controversy. “Litterateurs should fight with their pen and not go overboard by retuning their awards. The incident is certainly condemnable in the strongest way but returning awards to Sahitya Akademi is not correct,” he said.

EMINENT POET YASH MALAVIYA ALSO FEELS THAT THE SAHITYA AKADEMI’S ATTITUDE DESERVES NOTHING LESS THAN LITTERATEURS RETURNING THEIR AWARDS.