Meghalaya based film maker returns National award

Meghalaya-based film maker Tarun Bhartiya today returned the National Award he received in 2009 joining a host of writers, filmmakers and scientists in protest against the "growing intolerance" in the country.
Bhartiya who won the award for editing documentary film 'In Camera - Diaries of a Documentary Cameraman'.
"Today the unease has grown and examples of the truly greats - the ninety year old Krishna Sobti, for instance - returning their awards gives me a feeling that I don't need to keep mine either," Bhartiya said in a letter to President Pranab Mukherjee.
Stating that the country was being made to go through "dark times", Bhartiya went on to say that "this darkness was in the making for long: it hasn't descended suddenly upon us."

Stating that the destruction of Babri Masjid and the Gujarat genocide are not the only sores that plague this republic, he said, "In Kashmir the bullets never stop, the north-east too is an army zone with draconian AFSPA irrespective of whichever party is in power."
Attacking the Prime Minister for "keeping silent" on the growing intolerance in the country, Bhartiya said, "This can no longer be an excuse to hold on to a recognition from the Indian state which on a daily basis makes it clear that dissenting ideas, politics, lifestyles, food choices, choices of whom to love, how to be, will have to be forcibly marshaled into a narrow mainstream. I refuse to be part of any mainstream identity," he said.

Admitting that returning the national award was not a solution, he said it is merely a 'symbol' of protest while demanding the state uphold values which the freedom fighters have fought for - 'plural, democratic and secular'.
A copy of the letter was made available to the press.