Ten rebuttals to those opposing the return of Sahitya Akademi awards
#1. To those who say that the Sahitya Akademi is not the government, so why return these awards to protest against the government: Perhaps those who are returning their Sahitya Akademi awards have no more significant sacrifice to make to get their voices heard.
#2. To those who say that some other method of protest should be found: Perhaps one of the important features of a method of protest is efficacy. This one has got the government, up to the Arun Jaitley level at least, to respond.
#3. To those who say that this protest is political: Of course, it is.
#4. To those who think "political" means party X versus party Y: Every action that involves individuals or groups trying to influence the relationship of the individual or group to society is political. The Sahitya Akademi returnee-writers may just be a set of people who, as individuals, feel that some fundamental aspect of the collective they belong to is threatened, and so they are using whatever coercive measures they have at hand to prevent that from happening.
#5. To those who say that the conferring of these awards is not a political act but only a recognition of intellectual, literary, creative or academic merits: Please see the definition of "political" in #4 above.
#6. To those who say that returning these awards is a repudiation of the history of the Sahitya Akademi: Perhaps, it is an attempt to make some new history in relation to this institution. History does turn from time to time. Repudiating the past is not necessarily the same as disrespecting it.
#7. To those who ask "Is this not a case of ideological intolerance?": No, it isn't.
#8. To those who wonder why these people didn't return their awards earlier: Perhaps this is because writers, especially writers of fiction, tend to be timid people. They were emboldened by Nayantara Sahgal's courageous act (though Uday Prakash's earlier courageous act, exactly similar to Sahgal's, was not enough to spur them into action). Suddenly they found a way to speak that they hadn't thought of before, or, if they had considered it before, maybe they had thought it wouldn't work. They did it now; there's always a first time for everything.
#9. To those who say "Why don't they express their views in their writing?": Perhaps they will, perhaps they already have, but very few people were reading. Maybe a few more will read now.
#10. To those suggested that this authorial activism has been prompted by the decline of the Congress and Left: That's an insightful piece of analysis. It isn't hard to believe that the decline of political forces that express certain viewpoints (even if their actions don't always fall in line with their words) makes people who share those viewpoints try to express them in other ways. The question remains: Are these viewpoints important?