Post Dadri lynching and beef ban incidents, India’s diversity debate has struck a chord with noted poets and writers in the country who are showing their protests by returning acclaimed awards to the Modi government.
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After seeing Ms. Sahgal, the 88-year-old niece of Jawaharlal Nehru, Mr. Vajpeyi said he chose to give up the award and express his solidarity with her.
Vajpeyi also praised Nayantara Sahgal for taking such a strong stand and asked the writers community to come forward.
He also took exception to the “objectionable” statements made by a few Ministers of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led NDA government at the Centre and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s silence on the issue.
“The right to dissent is an integral part of this Constitutional guarantee”.
She said that rationalists who question superstition, anyone who questions any aspect of the “ugly and risky distortion of Hinduism known as Hindutva” – whether in the intellectual or artistic sphere, or whether in terms of food habits and lifestyle – were being marginalized, persecuted, or murdered. He has uttered no word of condemnation at all at these incidents. “What happened to the onus and responsibility of Prime Minister that brotherhood in India is maintained and core philosophy is maintained”, he added.
Earlier, Uday Prakash, another famous literary figure in Hindi language, had returned the award.
Referring the killing of Kannada writer and Sahitya Akademi award victor M M Kalburgi and activists Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare, she said “other dissenters have been warned they are next in line”.
Ms Sehgal, who got a Sahitya Akademi award in 1986 for her English novel Rich Like Us, said: “The ruling ideology today is a fascist ideology…” How can they blame the Sahitya Akademi, which has been in existence for over 60 years.
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“The fundamentals of the idea of India are under assault, Sahgal needs to be saluted, kudos to her and tricolour salute to her for standing up to the idea of India”, Congress leader Manish Tiwari said.
