Railing against Chetan Bhagat betrays political bias of Sahitya Akademi award returners

It is good that many Sahitya Akademi award winners are returning their awards in protest against what they call a growing culture of “intolerance”. But their acts would have been more credible if they had also uttered a mea culpa for this belated attack of conscience. First, let me be absolutely clear that the lynching of a Muslim in Dadri over beef, the killings of three rationalists over the last two years, and the blackening of Sudheendra Kulkarni’s face yesterday (12 October) by Shiv Sainiks are completely unacceptable and must not only be condemned but also be met with a stern response from the states concerned. [caption id=“attachment_2466744” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  AFP image[/caption] It is good that Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis did not bow down to the street thuggery of the Sena and allowed a book release function of Khurshid Kasuri, a former Pakistani foreign minister, in which Kulkarni was an active participant, and for which he got his unwanted facial. Hopefully the governments of UP, Karnataka and Fadnavis himself will show greater alacrity in nailing the culprits of Dadri, and the murderers of three rationalists. If found involved in the murder of the three rationalists, the Sanatan Sanstha may need to be proscribed. However, it is foolish to pretend that all this “manufactured” outrage is entirely apolitical. This much is obvious from not only from the timing of all this statement mongering and award returning frenzy, but from the kinds of observations being made by the award returners. Also, the award returners seem to forget that the Akademi is not a government institution, as Mridula Garg pointed out in an article in The Times of India. Take the case of Rajesh Joshi, a Hindi writer, another one to announce a return of his award. According to him, the current climate is even worse than Indira Gandhi’s Emergency as at that time people were just jailed, but now they were being killed. He also appealed to BJP leaders like LK Advani to leave the party just as Jagjivan Ram did by leaving the Congress after the Emergency. This is a ridiculous argument. Not only is Joshi hazy on his facts - Jagjivan Ram left the Congress not during the Emergency, but after Indira lifted it and announced elections - he is also guilty of trying to equate the actions of fringe groups with the malevolence of an authoritarian state in 1975. To make matters worse, Joshi also ridiculed Chetan Bhagat for his writing. Bhagat had tweeted in jest that he may also return his Sahitya Akademi award - only to note that he is yet to get one. “Ok, so I am also supposed to return my Sahitya Academy award? Oh wait. Haven’t got it yet,” Bhagat tweeted. He got duly trolled on Twitter by critics for this. But the truly arrogant bit came from Rajesh Joshi, who rubbished Bhagat as a writer of pulp and also that he was a known backer of Narendra Modi. Joshi is quoted by The Times of India as saying: “Bhagat is an ordinary English writer. He is not Vikram Seth, and he is also not Salman Rushdie.” Bhagat is obviously not Shakespeare either when it comes to his prose, but surely this is arrogance masquerading as legitimate criticism. Bhagat addresses that segment of the English reading market that is comfortable enough with his writing skills - and Joshi should know all about this. So he should not be raising a snooty nose to the quality of Bhagat’s writing when the issue is something else. Since he got onto the Rushdie comparison, one didn’t hear anything about Joshi returning his award when Rushdie was barred from attending a literary fest a few years back. If you pass up every opportunity to give up your award when equally frightful things happen, your credentials as a conscientious objector can be questioned. The biggest giveaway was Joshi’s reference to Bhagat’s support for Modi.  It shows that what really Joshi has against Bhagat is not his literary capabilities - or lack of it - but the latter’s alleged backing of Modi. This is as clear an indication as any that all this award-returning frenzy is tinged with anti-Modi bias. This may not be the case with all those now caught up in the frenzy of showing they are against intolerance, but why do I find it so difficult to accepted this orchestrated outrage as real?