Sahitya Akademi breaks silence, condemns rising cases of intolerance; urges writers to take back their awards

New Delhi: On a day when defiant writers held a protest against the silence of the Sahitya Akademi over rising intolerance in the country, the National Academy of Letters has spoken on the issue. While condemning the cases of attacks on writers, Sahitya Academi also urged the intellectuals to take back their awards.

"We all condemned the killing of MM Kalburgi. We have unanimously decided that writers who have returned awards should take them back and people who have resigned should join back," executive member of Sahitya Akademi Dr. Krishnaswamy Nachimuthu said.

A delegation led by noted writers Geetha Hariharan and Keki N Daruwalla reached the Kendra Sahitya Academy building in New Delhi on Friday morning demanding that the Academy must stand by the writers who have been returning the awards in protest against the rising level of intolerance across India. Speaking to media the delegation of writers questioned the silence of Academy over the killing of Kannada scholar MM Kalburgi, lynching of a person over beef eating in Dadri and some other similar incidents.

The returning of awards given by the government has divided the writers community across India. It seems to have further polarised the already polarised literary atmosphere.

In the last two months, several writers of national and international repute have spoken out against what they call systematic muzzling of voices of dissent by the government and government backed people. A famous writer like Vikram Seth has also backed these writers.

At the same time, a section of the writers are opposing the returning of awards. They allege that these writers are hypocrites who were quiet during the previous Congress regime. They have also questioned Vikram Seth for accepting an award from former Union minister Jagdish Tytler who is accused of leading a mob during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Union Finance and Information & Broadcasting minister Arun Jaitley wrote a blog describing the protest as a manufactured dissent. His blog attracted sharp criticism from the writers who have been supporting returning of the awards.