Another 24 filmmakers including Kundan Shah of ‘Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro’ fame and Saeed Mirza and writer Arundhati Roy on Thursday returned their National Awards over “growing intolerance”, voicing fears that the country’s democracy might be “coming apart” in the current atmosphere.
With this, at least 75 members of the intelligentsia have either returned national or literary awards, in an escalation of protests by writers, historians, filmmakers and scientists even as writer Nayantara Sahgal reiterated that “secularism was under threat” like never before.
The filmmakers also strongly rallied behind students of the prestigious Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), who recently called of their 136-day strike, saying that their battle went beyond the manipulation of education to include “intolerance, divisiveness and hate”.
While returning their awards, the 24 filmmakers in a letter addressed to the President and Prime Minister have said: “We hope that this symbolic gesture urges you to pay attention to our fears, that the warp and weft of our robust democracy might be coming apart in the current atmosphere.”
As they added to the voice against the “growing disregard” for the freedom of speech and the murder of three intellectuals, Roy, a Booker prize winner, was quoted as having said that she was returning the honour in protest against “ideological viciousness”. She had received the 1989 National Film Award for Best Screenplay for the documentary ‘In which Annie Gives it to those Ones’.
Other prominent names who returned the awards on Thursday included documentary filmmaker Anwar Jamal, director Virendra Saini, Pradip Krishnen, Manoj Lobo, sound designers Vivek Sachidanand, PM Satheesh, Ajay Raina, director Sudhakar Reddy Yakkanti, editor Irene Dhar Malik, cinematographer Satya Rai Nagpaul, director Amitabh Chakraborty, filmmaker Tapan Bose and Madhusree Dutta.
Shah, an FTII alumnus, said to give up his only National Award which he had received for cult film ‘Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro’ was very sad, but was a necessary decision to protest against the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan as the chairman of FTII. “This is the only National Award I have for ‘Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro’ and I feel very sad to part with it. I owe this award to my alma mater FTII, there would’ve been no ‘Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro’ if I had not studied at FTII,” he said.
Mirza known for his film ‘Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyoon Aata Hai’ and TV show ‘Nukkad’, said the protest started by students has become into a movement against “intolerance, divisiveness and hate”.
Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu hit back at those who had returned their awards at a “Know the Truth” briefing in Delhi, stating that “ efforts are being made to derail the Modi government’s development agenda.”
The “award wapasi” campaign has faced criticism from some quarters, who call it selective protest but Shah countered the argument saying his films were against the then ruling government, Congress too.
“This is not a protest against BJP only – we’ve protested through our work against the Congress government too,” he said, adding the award money will be donated to charity, while the trophy will be given to the representatives of the I&B ministry.
Meanwhile, the award wapasi campaign reached Meghalaya too, with a state-based filmmaker, Tarun Bhartiya, returning his National Award that he had received in 2009 on Thursday. Bhartiya had won the award for editing documentary film ‘In Camera Diaries of a Documentary Cameraman’.