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Why Are They Returning Their National Awards? Here’s What You Should Know About It

byShriya Joshi
7th November 2015
3 minute read

Munshi Premchand once said-
“Literature isn’t something that follows politics, but leads it like a torch.”

Everybody knows there’s some hullabaloo going around on the news that writers across the country are returning their awards and people from the entertainment industry like Anupam Kher have something to say about it, but the point in case is somewhat ambiguous. To know why this is happening and to understand that, we’ll have to look into what happened to instigated these circumstances.

So here’s a brief timeline of the unfolding events that have made a huge impact on the literary community of India.

 

20th August 2013

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While on his morning walk, Narendra Dhabholkar (an author and a Maharashtrian libertarian) was shot by two unidentified gunmen, allegedly for voicing out his opinions against superstitious practices rampant throughout the country.

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20th February 2015

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Comrade Govind Pansare(Author and Politician) was shot at along with his wife in the same manner as Dabholkar supposedly for supporting his cause and continuing his legacy.

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30th August 2015

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The murder of Karnataka philosopher, M.M. Kalburgi who openly opposed superstition, rocked the entire nation.

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4th September 2015

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A Hindi writer, Uday Prakash becomes the first person to return his award. Who was followed by noted Indian writers like, Nayantara Sehgal(English Novelist) & Ashok Vajpayee( Hindi poet) in doing so.

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28th September 2015

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On the assumption of eating beef, a man was lynched and beaten to death in Dadri.

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This resulted in nationwide anger and more Sahitya Akademi awardees declared that they’re returning their awards.

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Along with scores of novelists, essayists, writers, playwrights, poets, actors, artists, those who never received a national award also professed that they would’ve returned if they had one.

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But this movement was accused of being politically motivated and it was called a selective pre-planned outrage. Anupam Kher stated that every country has problems but nobody has the right to call India an intolerant nation.

People from all artistic communities criticized this move by stating that returning awards is not a sign of protest as much as political diffidence.

They were asked where they were when the country was in Emergency.

They were questioned on why didn’t return awards during UPA Governance’s failure to protech MF Hussain in 2010, and during 1984 riots.

 

 

7 November, 2015

Anupam Kher, who has openly slammed the Akademi exodus, carried out a march in Delhi saying nobody that has inspired a huge response from the masses.

 

 

People joined in Kher’s twitter campaign #MarchforIndia with vigour from everywhere and marches took place in a lot of cities alonwith Delhi.

The Sahitya Akademi which is an institution that binds writers from all corners of the country is urging award returnees to rethink their decision as these awards were intended to represent the love and respect the Akademi has bestowed on the authors and they shouldn’t be disregarding it.

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