Goan poet claims his book rejected over 'obscene' words

Sahitya Akademi Award winner Neelba Khandekar has said the state-run Goa Konkani Academy has refused to buy and circulate his collection of poems, claiming it contains some "objectionable and obscene" words.

The poet said the Goa Konkani Academy's executive committee approved the purchase and circulation of his book, titled "The Words", in 2018, but rejected it recently.

"The executive committee has said the book contains some objectionable and obscene words," Khandekar told PTI.

He said the Konkani Academy's executive panel has taken objection to two words in Konkani in one of the poems.

The state-run academy had approved the purchase of 90 copies of the book. The purchase order was sent to the poet in in January 2019, but was cancelled recently.

Khandekar also filed applications under Right to Information (RTI) Act to different government bodies to find out why those words were deemed objectionable.

He said those words appear in his work "Gangrape" which won him the coveted Sahitya Akademi Award last year.

"I tried to get into the depth of the matter and filed four RTI applications, two each with the Goa Konkani Academy and the Official Language department," he said.

After not getting any response from both, Khandekar also appealed to the Goa Information Commission but could not get any satisfactory reply from there, the poet said.

"What hurts me is that at least the Official Language department, which funds the Goa Konkani Academy, should have questioned the logic behind rejecting my book," he said.

No member of the Goa Konkani Academy's executive committee was available for comments on the issue.

This is not the first time that the state-run body is in news for objecting to contents in a book.

In 2017, it cancelled an award announced for a collection of poems, titled "Sudirsukt", written by late Vishnu Surya Wagh.

The Konkani Academy had objected to certain alleged derogatory references about a particular community in a poem by Wagh, who died last year.