Prestigious awards should be cherished and valued: President Mukherjee on 'award waapsi'

President Pranab Mukherjee made his disapproval of intelligentsia returning their awards in protest of ‘rising intolerance’ clear on Monday and said prestigious awards were a public recognition of talent, merit and hard work by peers and leaders in profession and such awards should be “cherished and valued”. “Sensitive minds sometimes get disturbed by some incidents in society, but expression of concern over such events should be balanced,” President Mukherjee said, speaking at the National Press Day function in Delhi. [caption id=“attachment_2508470” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] President Pranab Mukherjee. Agencies[/caption] President Mukherjee said emotions should not come in the way of reason and disagreement should be expressed through discussion and debate. He expressed faith in the country and her people as a “proud Indian” and urged citizens to have confidence in the “idea of India” and the values of the constitution. At the function, President Mukherjee spoke of the impact of cartooning as a medium of expression of opinion and dedicated the discussion to India’s foremost cartoonists RK Laxman and Rajinder Puri, both of whom passed away early in 2015. The president paid tribute to the two pioneers of cartooning in India for their contribution to the art of cartooning and social criticism. The president also congratulated 2015’s recipients of national awards instituted by the Press Council of India for eminent journalists and photojournalists. President Mukherjee is not the first to disapprove of the so called award waapsi movement, wherein many artists, filmmakers, writers have returned prestigious awards in dissent. Many such artists have mentioned a ‘climate of intolerance’ prevailing in the nation in the backdrop of the Dadri lynching and murders of eminent scholars such as MM Kalburgi and Narendra Dabholkar in recent times. On the other hand, many artists including Anupam Kher, Madhur Bhandarkar, among others, have dismissed the dissent and maintained that the country is not intolerant and that returning awards is not the right way to express disapproval.