Letters: Questionable dissent

Apropos Nilanjana Roy's column, "Why writers are returning Sahitya Akademi awards" (October 13), the incidents which angered the artists to return the awards viz, the lynching of a Muslim man in Dadri for allegedly storing beef and the murder of three rationalists in the last two years, are so disconnected in time, geography and politics as to convince a neutral observer of the genuineness of their 'anger'.

Rationalist M M Kalburgi's murder occurred in Congress-ruled Karnataka while the Dadri incident took place in Uttar Pradesh where the Samajwadi Party is in power. Both parties claim to wear secularism on their sleeves. Narendra Dabholkar was killed in 2013 when the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party alliance ruled Maharashtra, with the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance in power at the Centre. Yet, the entire blame for destroying secularism, liberty and tolerance is placed at the door of the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance. This smacks of blatant partisanship on the part of these artistes, who are well past their glory days. It is ironic that the same set of 'eminent' individuals criticised the filing of criminal cases against Kashmiris, who cheered Pakistani cricketers playing against the Indian team on the grounds that culture and sports must be kept away from politics.

The liberalism and courage of these voices of dissent are questionable in the wake of the vicious attack made by Rajesh Joshi, who returned his award, on Chetan Bhagat, rubbishing him as a "writer of pulp" after the latter mocked this award-returning spree in one of his tweets. Joshi never thought of returning his award during the UPA's regime when novelist Salman Rushdie was barred from attending the Jaipur Literature Festival in 2012.

Also, with reference to the mention of Emergency in the column, stray and malevolent actions of fringe groups can never be compared with the draconian misuse of power by an authoritarian state in 1975.

Ajay Tyagi Mumbai

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