Following attacks on freedom of speech, writers in India are now taking a stand on the growing intolerance to free speech and thought in the country. And they are doing it by returning the highest national and state awards bestowed upon them by the government. Writers Nayantara Sahgal and Uday Prakash, poet Ashok Vajpeyi have returned their Sahitya Akademi Awards protesting inaction by the Central government in tackling the growing intolerance in the country. It was only after Sahgal returned her award on Tuesday, that the debate on this attack on freedom of speech, took a different approach.
Sahgal’s letter aptly titled ‘The Unmaking of India’ starts off by quoting Vice President Hamid Ansari’s recent speech where he stated that the Constitution promises all Indians liberty of thought, speech, religion. Sahagal’s letter specifically mentions the killing of rationalists Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and M M Kalburgi and the lynching of a Muslim man in Dadri, and questions the silence of the Prime Minister on what she calls a ‘reign of terror’. She calls the attack on free speech a ‘vicious assault’ on ‘India’s culture of diversity and debate’. Vajpeyi, a former chairman of the Lalit Kala Akademi, said ‘It’s high time that writers take a stand.’ Six Kannada writers have also returned the literary awards they had been bestowed by the Karnataka government after the murder of Kalburgi.
Though she has been questioned on twitter and other micro-blogging sites on why she did not return the award at earlier times, when there have been other attacks on Indian democracy, Sahgal’s returning the Sahitya Akademi award that she received 29 years ago can in no way be dubbed partisan or anti-BJP. Sahgal, the niece of Jawaharlal Nehru, had also protested the imposition of the Emergency in 1975 by her cousin Indira Gandhi. Family lineage did not come in the way 40 years ago when she believed that the government had done something wrong. So now, it’s not likely that the 88-year-old writer is playing politics.
This is not just about returning a National award. That is a symbolic gesture, merely the manner of protest. As Sahagla said in her letter that she was returning the Sahitya Akademi award ‘In memory of the Indians who have been murdered, in support of all Indians who uphold the right to dissent, and of all dissenters who now live in fear and uncertainty’. This is about the freedom of speech that the Constitution bestows on every citizen of India. If Dabholkar, Pansare and Kalburgi could pay with their lives for being free thinkers and rationalists, there is reason to fear that this Constitutional freedom is under threat and that is what Sahgal, Vajpeyi and Prakash have referred to and want to highlight. When a man can be killed on the suspicion of having cooked and eaten beef at his home, as happened in Dadri, then there is reason to fear that there is no tolerance for a person’s beliefs and way of life.
Goa has not been isolated from this intolerance and there have been instances when there have been calls to parents not to send their children to convent schools, or statements that incidents of rape are on the rise because people have adopted western culture. These are examples of the intolerance to the beliefs or way of life of others. Western culture cannot be blamed for all the ills in this country.
In a country like India, that has for centuries embraced all religions and beliefs, the sudden hard line in society has to be questioned by all right-thinking citizens of the country. As Vajpeyi said, there is need for the government to assure the citizens that pluralism will be defended at every cost. Today, the secularism that India stands for is under threat but the country can’t allow it to be killed. Efforts have to be made to keep it alive so that India survives.
