Some Writers Have Agreed to Take Back Sahitya Akademi Awards

The Sahitya Akademi today said that Nayantara Sahgal has agreed to take back the award she had returned citing “growing intolerance” in the country.

“I am not taking back either the award or the cheque, which is now invalid anyway”, Sahgal, 88, the first high-profile writer to return her award, clarified. “I also foresee that since the Uttar Pradesh elections are due, the government is wooing the writers to take back the award”, said Uday Prakash, adding that he wouldn’t reclaim his award. “It would be sent to other writers as well”, Sahitya Akademi president Vishwanath Prasad Tiwari said.

Nayantara, niece of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and author of more than nine novels, returned her award in protest against what she described as the “rising attacks on those questioning the ugly and unsafe distortion of Hinduism” in wake of the murder of rationalist M M Kalburgi and the lynching of Mohammed Akhtaq in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, last year.

Meanwhile, a culture ministry source said, “There is is a list of 10 writers who have agreed to take back the awards they had returned”.

“The decision of some of the writers to take back the award came a bit early”. “The Akademi strongly condemns the killing of writer Kalburgi and appeals to the state and Central government to take steps to prevent such incidents in the future”, Krishnaswamy Nachimuthu, an executive committee board member had said after the meeting. “This is also intolerance”, Vajpeyi said on the sidelines of the ongoing Jaipur Literature festival here. There has always been intolerance in our society. “The writers should have reviewed whether anything substantial was done by the government or not”, he said.

“Each one of us acted individually and there was nothing political or orchestrated- as was made out by critics – in our decision to return our awards”.

But Sreenivasarao added that Sahgal too had agreed verbally over the phone after receiving the Akademi’s January 14 letter requesting her to reconsider her decision.

Sahgal clarified that it was the Sahitya Akademi’s policy to not accept an award back once they confer it on an individual.

Vajpeyi also flayed the delayed response of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.