Eminent poet from West Bengal, Mandakranta Sen, who had received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2004 or her body of work on Bengali poetry announced on Wednesday morning that she is returning her award to protest against the growing communalism and attacks on rationalists.
Including her, the number of such dissenting artists has risen to 25. This is definitely not good news for a nation like us who has always been lauded for its rich cultural heritage. The so called protest against ‘intolerance’ came into picture from absolutely nowhere and gained momentum so much so that almost every day we get to hear some poet or author or novelist ready to return the honour given to them by the government for their literary excellence.
The sudden insurgency is not only gathering attention from the Indian media or literary scholars but is also doing the rounds across the world. It has also caught the eyes of eminent author and novelist Salman Rushdie who sitting afar, has expressed his solidarity with the members participating in this ‘andolan’.
It all began with novelist Nayantara Sehgal and Hindi author Uday Prakash returning their awards first and now a lot of others have also joined the bandwagon- Aman Sethi, Sarah Joseph, N Shivdas and Mandrakranta Sen are to name a few.
While I absolutely agree that gruesome incident like Dadri Lynching should always be strongly condemned; the delayed compunction of these rebellious artists is a little hard to digest owing to the timing of their protests.
The Bihar elections are going on and the country is all excited to witness the results of this big battle. But these rebel authors are chipping in one by one to be a part of this insurgency and it would be foolish to consider that the motive here is apolitical.
This sudden awakening of their conscience comes at a time when the fate of Bihar is going to be sealed next month and the timing of their revolt indicates that the agenda here perhaps is the embarrassment of the central government.
What is even worse is that if someone dares to speak against these rebels, they have to face the consequences. Last week, Chetan Bhagat tried to express his views on the protesting artists and he was trolled over the twitter.
Critically acclaimed actor, Anupam Kher has also expressed his concerns over the mass exodus. Debunking the Akademi revolt, Kher said that their intensions are politically motivated and it is a collective effort to embarrass the Prime Minister.
It is great to be a nationalist and a true patriot, but such protests don’t make the nation proud. Instead, it makes the mockery of our patriotic fervour not just within the nation but on global platform as well.