Invitation to lit fest cancelled after political pressure: Nayantara Sahgal

Novelist Nayantara Sahgal said on Tuesday the organisers of a literature festival in Mumbai cancelled her invitation after “political pressure” 

"It is only obvious because the organisers of the event are aware of my views, my writings and my concerns, which I have been talking about openly, and they had invited me with great happiness,” said Sahgal about the Akhil Bharatiya Marathi Sahitya Sammelan.

"I was all set to go for the event but I received a brief three-four line letter from the organisers on January 6, saying they were cancelling the invitation," said Sahgal, 91, who was at the forefront of the "award wapsi" campaign.

Asked who could be behind the abrupt cancellation of her invite, she said, "Political pressure by those who are in power in Maharashtra." The literary meet is scheduled to be held in Mumbai on January 11.

Sahgal had hit the headlines in 2015 when she returned her Sahitya Academy Award in protest against what she had termed as growing fundamentalism and intolerance in the country under the current Bharatiya Janata Party-led dispensation.

The Sahitya Academy award had been given to her in 1986 for her work in English titled "Rich Like Us".

Sahgal had inspired a number of distinguished people from different walks of life to return their awards.

Aged 91, Sahgal is the daughter of Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit and the niece of Jawaharlal Nehru. She lives in Dehradun.