The Fight Back: "We Will Not Let India Become A Hindu Pakistan"

NEW DELHI: Hindi writer Uday Prakash set the ball rolling. 88 year old Nayantara Sahgal followed. And now poet Ashok Vajpayi has joined them in returning the awards received from the Sahitya Akademi during the course of their long and distinguished literary life. All in protest against the “vicious attack” by the Hindutva brigade on the secular and democratic foundation of India.

"The Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) keeps quiet. He is an eloquent Prime Minister who addresses lakhs of people, but here writers are being murdered, innocent people are being killed, his ministers are making objectionable statements...Why doesn't he shut them up?" Vajpayi asked.

“India is being unmade, destroyed,” said Sahgal

In an interview to The Citizen from Dehradun, Nayantara Sahgal spoke her mind:

Q. What was the turning point for you?

There was no specific turning point. I have been very unhappy about the rising tide of hatred and violence against all those who do not fall in line with the Hindutva way of thinking. But perhaps it was the murder of that poor unfortunate man in Dadri. As it is the poor are not heard, and we have no idea what they are going through, and then this brutal attack on him. Also the murder of rationalists, one after the other.

Q. Did you believe that one day you would see this kind of shift in polity?

I didn’t believe this could happen. At least not until I saw the legitimisation of the then Jan Sangh with the Jai Prakash movement, that gave them respectability. For a long time they laid low. Then Mr Advani took out his rath yatra, the Babri Masjid was demolished… These things do not happen in a moment, but over a span of time.

Q. Do you think the fight back over the years was not sufficiently strong?

The situation is deplorable. And perhaps the opposition has not made the fight against communalism strong enough.

Q. The creative community too has not been very vocal in its opposition. Do you agree?

I don’t think that is true. All across the world (cites several examples) there is deep political awareness. And the writers and others have taken the lead in opposing dictatorships, and tyranny of all kinds.

Q. In India?

That is why I have spoken out. There is not strong enough awareness here. Perhaps we have all become a little complacent about our democracy. There is not sufficient response, perhaps that is another reason I made this protest. I was inspired by the Hindi writer who returned the award. Now Ashok Vajpayi has also returned his. The Sahitya Akademi was set up to protect the freedom of speech and the rights of writers, authors, script writers, everyone. Three writers have been murdered and the Akademi did not say a word about this. If not in protest, at least it could have spoken out in sorrow.

Q. So do you think India is heading towards a Hindu rashtra?

If it is not opposed, we are heading that way. But I don’t believe it will not be opposed, is not being opposed. It is being opposed by distinguished and qualified people, many voices are being raised. More and more voices will join them as there is great anxiety about our country. " I do not see India becoming a Hindu Pakistan we will not let that happen.”

Creative India has been resisting efforts by the BJP led government, the RSS and its affiliates to take over the cultural institutions. A case in point has been the prolonged agitation of the students and faculty of the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune against the appointments of RSS and BJP members in top positions. Several actors and directors joined the protest, and signed petitions in support of the students demanding the cancellation of these appointments.

Mainstream Bollywood also came in with actors Rishi Kapoor, Amol Palekar, Aamir Khan, Vidya Balan, Naseeruddin Shah, Shekhar Kapur, Resul Pookutty, Anand Gandhi, Hansal Mehta, Nikhil Advani, Anubhav Sinha joined Anand Patwardhan, Saeed Mirza, Kumar Shahani and others in protesting against this ‘takeover’ of the Institute.

Academics and intellectuals have been jointly signing petitions and statements protesting against the violence, and the government’s bid to take over existing cultural institutions with the appointments of RSS ideologues in key positions. However, the decision to return the awards by the three writers now sets a new precedent and opens the way for a similar political statements by many other award winners in the creative world.