New Delhi: Poet and a former chairperson of the Lait Kala Akademi, Ashok Vajpeyi has returned his Sahitya Akademi award protesting against what he called the silence of the Prime minister over the murders of writers. “The Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) keeps quiet. He is an eloquent Prime Minister who addresses lakhs of people, but here writers are being murdered, innocent people are being killed, his ministers are making objectionable statements…Why doesn’t he shut them up?” he told NDTV.
“Why doesn’t he tell the nation and the writing and creating community that the pluralism of this community will be defended at every cost? Although the government makes announcements that this would not be tolerated, that would not be tolerated …but tolerance is there. How is it that all this has erupted now?”
His renunciation of the award came after Nayantara Sahgal, the 88-year-old niece of India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru gave up the honour protesting against what she called a “vicious assault” on India’s diversity and debate. She had given out a statement titled “Unmaking of India”. In it, she referred to the recent mob killing of a Muslim man over rumours that he had eaten beef, and also the killings of rationalists MM Kalburgi, Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare. Nayantara Sahgal had also questioned PM Modi’s silence.
“He has uttered no word of condemnation at all at these incidents. The whole country wishes the Prime Minister to make a statement because the situation is getting more and more serious,” Ms Sahgal said.
“Under Modi we are going backwards, regressing, narrowing down to Hindutva…there is rising intolerance and lots of Indians are living in fear,” she commented.
Ashok Vajpeyi said it was rare for a senior English writer like Nayantara Sahgal to take such a strong stand, and it needed support from the writing community. “It is high time that writers take a stand,” Mr Vajpeyi, said in support of her. Mr Vajpeyi also expressed disappointed at the silence of Sahitya Akademi, the national academy of letters comprising writers, and said it “failed to rise to the occasion and respect its autonomy.”
Earlier, Hindi writer Uday Prakash too had returned the award.
