15, Oct 2015

Thursday, 15 October 2015 | PNS | New Delhi
After Mahesh Sharma, his Cabinet colleague Ravi Shankar Prasad on Wednesday questioned eminent writers’ act of returning awards to protest against Kannada author Kalburgi’s murder and Dadri lynching reminding them that such voices were “not heard” after incidents like Emergency and Muzaffarnagar riots.
His statement came on a day when a section of writers from Assam Sahitya Sabha resented their fellow writers’ action of returning Sahitya Akademi awards and expressed concern over “needless politicisation” of the autonomous institution.
The Sabha noted that instead of using Sahitya Akademi as a medium of protest, the authors should have found some other way to express their protest. Sabha President Dr Dhrubajyoti Bora said, “We uphold the right of writers to protest, but we also strongly feel that Sahitya Akademi, an autonomous national institution of authors, that is internationally reputed, should not be needlessly politicised as it can cause great harm to its autonomy and interests of Indian authors.”