Accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of “setting free a pack of wolves” on minorities to curtail their rights, Kashmir's well-known writer Ghulam Nabi Khayal on Monday joined other writers, artists and poets across the country to return the Sahitya Akademi award.
“I can’t witness such worst situation as a mute spectator. After the BJP-led government assumed power in India, an alarming communal situation has started arising. Adverse regional and religious polarisation is happening in the entire India and J&K is no exception,” Mr. Khayal told the media in Srinagar, while announcing to renounce his award.
Write and journalist, Mr. Khayal has won the prestigious honour for his book 'Gashik Minaar’ (Luminaries) in 1975. He is first Kashmiri to return the award as religious fault lines continue to grow in the state over the beef ban controversy.
“There is increasing communalisation and right-wing violence in India and across J&K after the BJP-led government assumed power at New Delhi,” Mr. Khayal alleged.
He accused Prime Minster Narendra Modi of coming up with ‘a delayed reaction’ to the Dadri lynching incident. “The BJP, an offshoot of the RSS, is now curbing the fundamental rights of the people by forcing people to change their food habits,” he added.
Big names in art, culture and academia, which include English novelist Nayantara Sahgal, Hindi poet Ashok Vajpayee and English writer Shashi Deshande, have returned their Akademi awards over the lynching of Muhammad Ikhlaq in Dadri, UP.
Kashmir’s top cultural body, Adbee Markaz Kamraz (AMK), has also expressed solidarity with all those writers who returned their awards to the Sahitya Akademi over growing “communal frenzy” in the country.
“The writers who returned their awards in protest must be supported by one and all. They are people with conscience,” said AMK president Syed Shujaat Bukhari, while asking other writers in J&K “not to be a mute spectator”.
