Breaking its widely-criticised silence on harassment of writers, the Sahitya Akademi on Friday expressed solidarity with them and urged the authors to take back the awards they had returned to protest against “rising intolerance”. The move has been welcomed by one of India’s best known novelists Vikram Seth.
Strongly condemning the killing of writer MM Kalburgi, the literary body passed an unanimous resolution appealing to state and central governments to take steps to prevent such incidents and asked authors to take back the awards they had returned in protest. “The Executive Board is deeply pained and strongly condemns the murder of Professor Kalburgi and other intellectuals and thinkers,” Sahitya Akademi chief Vishwanath Prasad Tiwari said after an emergency meeting on Friday.
“The Akademi firmly supports the writers’ Right to Freedom of Expression in all the languages of India and condemns any atrocity against any writer anywhere in the country,” he added, saying that the Centre and states must maintain an “ambience of peaceful co-existence in the society”.
Friday’s meeting was attended by 20 out of 24 executive council members of the Akademi, according to Huirem Behari Singh, an Executive Committee Board member. Celebrated writer K Satchidanandan, who had resigned from all positions in the Sahitya Akademi stating that it “failed in its duty to stand with the writers and to uphold freedom of expression guaranteed by the Constitution”, did not attend the meeting.
Welcoming the top literary body’s statement the eminent author Vikram Seth said: “It’s a statement as strong as I could have expected and indeed in some senses broader. I consider it a noble statement and I am both relieved and grateful that the board of Sahitya Akademi has made the statement that it has made.”
“It has condemned any attempt to suppress free speech and of course the ultimate suppression of free speech is when you stop the lips and deaden the hands, in other words murder. It has also condemned the atmosphere of fear that is sought to be inculcated by acts of assassinations such as these. This form of fear and terror in effect terrorism has been condemned in the strongest possible terms. I am very happy that this has happened,” added the 63-year-old author.
This morning, a large group of writers and others held a solidarity march in New Delhi with black gags and arm bands. After covering a short distance to the Sahitya Akademi building, they submitted a memorandum demanding stern steps to safeguard freedom of speech and the right to dissent.