Amitav Ghosh criticises Sahitya Akademi leadership, but says he won't return his award

Amitav Ghosh, author of Booker Prize shortlisted Sea of Poppies and winner of Sahitya Akademi award in 1990, in an interview with The Indian Express said, that although he ‘appreciated the courage’ of authors who have returned their awards, he wont follow suit.

“There can be no doubt that the present government is tacitly enabling these attacks by failing to take punitive and preventive action. In refusing to protest, the Sahitya Akademi is shamefully in dereliction of its duties,” said Ghosh.

With writers all across the country returning their Sahitya Akademi awards in protest citing the growing atmosphere of intolerance towards free speech and communal disharmony in the country, the debate over the validity and the ‘motivations’ behind such acts are being questioned.

Ghosh said that the people should be criticizing the present leadership of the Akademi rather than the institution itself.

The author believes that rather than delegitimising the Akademi itself, the focus should be on the current leadership that has failed to respond and condemn acts of growing intolerance towards free speech in the country. He also suggested that the writers come together to ‘chart a future course of action’.

Vishwanath Prasad Tiwari, the Akademi President, has been constantly called out in the past few weeks for inaction and even attributing questionable motives to authors returning their awards in protest.

When Nayantara Sahgal, who led the wave, returned her award, Tiwari, in a poorly worded response, said that she had already reaped the benefits of the award.

“She earned all the profits. She can now return all the award money, but what of the credibility and goodwill she earned through the award?” he asked.

Sahgal responded saying that the collective return of the awards made it clear how anguished the writers in India are at the fact that he had remained silent over the murder and intimidation of writers and the threat that hangs over dissent and debate.

“Has the Sahitya Akademi, like Pontius Pilate, washed its hands of its responsibility to safeguard our Constitutional right to freedom of speech,” she told NDTV . She also said that she will be sending the Akademi a cheque of Rs 1 lakh.

Returning their awards or not, Tiwari and his silence over matters have been echoed by many.

Poet Keki Daruwalla, who returned his award, wrote in an open letter to Tiwari that the institution has failed up to standing up to the ‘freedom of expression against threat, upholding the rights of the marginalized, speaking up against superstitions and intolerance of any kind.’

In the letter published in Scroll , Daruwalla said although the institute cannot prevent crimes or hasten investigation, he has failed to stand up to writers. He added that not all everyone is protesting the killing or the riots, Many are protesting against the fact that the Akademi kept silent, and lacked the boldness to stand up for a murdered author.

“My signed letter and cheque will be in your office tomorrow,” he concluded.

Apart from the leadership at Sahitya Akademi, many have been vigorously questioning the silence by the top brass of the ruling government, especially the Prime Minister. On Tuesday, the Prime Minister finally “broke his silence” . He said that the although the incident in Dadri and the cancellation of Pakistani singer Ghulam Ali’s concert in Mumbai due to protests by the Shiv Sena were saddening, why was the Centre was being dragged into the controversy.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley soon followed suit. In a Facebook post , Jaitley said that the Akademi controversy was a “manufactured paper rebellion” against the government “in the wake of a manufactured crisis”.

“The Congress is showing no signs of revival. The Left is being increasingly pushed to the margin. The new strategy of anti–Modi, anti–BJP sections appears to be to resort to “politics by other means,” he wrote.