What India's writers failed to achieve
So much has been said and written about the Sahitya Akademi awards lately that no further debate on the subject seems possible in the current context. In fact, just the idea seems to invite one to bang one’s head on the nearest wall.
If one has the clarity to leave aside the people, who with great personal integrity, resigned from their positions in the Akademi in response to its silence over Professor MM Kalburgi’s murder, what we have left is a long list of awardees who returned their awards and a teeny-tiny list of those who did not.
There have largely been two schools of thought, and both holier than thou, I am afraid.
One, those who believed that ALL the writers and artists who were returning their awards were sincere, angry people fighting injustice and throwing the state-conferred honours back at it. That they were protesting the current fascist regime! Very commendable! And this was true in most cases. Anguished pieces written by filmmakers, articles penned down by angry writers, uncomfortable questions asked, real issues raised – these were certainly not manufactured but spoke of the pain of a real people who seemed to have reached their saturation point.
And then there were those (decidedly worse, spiteful and negative), who believed the awards were being returned to gain publicity, to boost self-importance, be in the news and join the big league!
And so, these very, very predictable and tiresome binaries were formed, with each group lashing out at the other very viciously.
Anybody who tried to shift slightly away from these binaries was either ignored or ridiculed. I wrote a rather annoyed (and perhaps annoying post and was criticised, which is fine with me).
I might annoy even more people with this but I firmly believe that though there were many great writers with impeccable integrity who returned their awards in deep-felt anguish to honour the India they knew and wanted, there were also those who could not touch these writers in integrity or talent and were jumping on the bandwagon. (And there were few like me, who considered themselves small fish and anyway hated to be forced to prove any points to anyone.)
So, while we can admire most, and admire them completely and unconditionally, let us please not imagine this brave army of intellectual warriors standing against fascists. There are also many other kinds.
Also, in indulging in these neat categorisations, we risk ignoring or not understanding another sort of writers fast becoming a minority – the calm ones devoid of hysteria.
This week, Tabish Khair, the Denmark-based Indian writer and critic wrote an essay on this in The Hindu, in much more well-considered, sophisticated and sensible words. A very important point that he made was: “In a democracy, awards cannot be equated with governments.”
He highly applauds the writers and their gesture, but the piece does begin with, “Much sound and fury, but signifying what?”
The essay talks of the importance of gesture, but also of how it might have actually benefited the Modi government. At the end of the essay, Khair goes into a very insightful, intelligent tangent, making a sort of a reading of the situation I’ve not yet read anywhere else in this context. It is difficult to summarise it here.
However, that does not matter because I am not writing to defend or attack the essay but to comment on a post Khair made later, saying, “I cannot help noticing that my Indian writer acquaintances on FB (Facebook) have remained tacitly silent on this posting. That worries me more than (reasoned) disagreement.”
This, for me too, is the much more important point here. Usually, such essays escalate into debates with people from all ends of the spectrum putting forth their views. There is deathly silence on this one. Not even any good old swearing or slug fests!
I fear that it is because we, as a country, are at a place where we are so convinced that our way is the only right way that we have become immune to nuance. There is a trace of quiet common sense and tolerance running through the essay. I fear that Khair’s friends and acquaintances, most of whom I believe are academicians and older writers, do not wish to, or are unable to engage with it.
Or else, there could be a highly misplaced, superior ridicule that he does not know what he is talking about. In each case, I see a future of public debate in India where though intellectuals will be willing to indulge in passionate gestures that soothe their own mind, they might not be able to be still, silent and listen. That, to my mind, is a dangerous path we seem to be walking on.