Nayantara Sahgal, a renowned Indian writer and member of the Indian Writer’s Forum, who was recognised for her impeccable work in Indian literature and awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award 29 years ago, has returned the prestigious award to the government as a sign of protest. She was honoured in 1986 for her English novel, Rich Like Us. Nayantara is not happy with the way religious intolerance is rising in our nation, which is curbing people’s rights.
She believes that the ruling ideologies in our country are fascist and it worries her. “We did not have a fascist government until now… I am doing whatever I believe in,” Sahgal said in a statement.
Nayantara, also the niece of Jawaharlal Nehru, took this major step after hearing about the brutal killing of a Muslim man in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, who was suspected to have eaten cow meat. Nayantara believes that such a vicious assault on India’s cultural diversity is dangerous and she refuses to be party to it.
The 88-year-old writer also blamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his silence over such gruesome acts of religious intolerance especially in a multi-cultural country like ours.
“In all these cases, justice drags its feet. The Prime Minister remains silent about this reign of terror. We must assume he dare not alienate evil-doers who support his ideology,” she wrote.
She isn’t the first writer to take this step to return an award. In the past, Hindi writer Uday Prakash and Ashok Vajpeyi, the former chairperson of the Lalit Kala Akademi have also returned their awards, in protest.
Many twitteratis took to social media to question Nayantara’s decision of returning the award and why it came so late in the wake of things, skipping other major events of religious intolerance in India’s history like the Godhra massacre, the injustice with Kashmiri Pandits and the Sikh riots. But all we can say is better late than never.
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