Arundhati Roy Returns National Award

Countercurrents.org, KalimNews, 05 November, 2015: Booker Prize winning author Arundhati Roy has become the latest to join the band wagon to return national award presented by Government of India, as a protest to 'growing intolerance' in the country. 

Four Padma Bhushan Awards, 3rd highest civilian honour in the country, 40 Sahitya Academi Awards given to eminent literary personalities, twelve National film Awards were returned to Narendra Modi Government as a protest in just 18 months of BJP rule. The award returning movement is dubbed as 'Award Wapsi' echoing the Hindutva ultra-nationalists’ movement called 'Ghar Wapsi' (home coming) by which people of other faiths are forcefully converted back to Hinduism.

Arundhati Roy who is the author of Booker Prize winning "The God of Small Things" said she is not returning the award over what is popularly termed as 'growing intolerance' in the country. She said she is not shocked at all of these developments as we had plenty of advance notice of what was coming. She said: 

I want to make it clear that I am not returning this award because I am “shocked” by what is being called the “growing intolerance” being fostered by the present government. First of all, “intolerance” is the wrong word to use for the lynching, shooting, burning and mass murder of fellow human beings. Second, we had plenty of advance notice of what lay in store for us — so I cannot claim to be shocked by what has happened after this government was enthusiastically voted into office with an overwhelming majority. Third, these horrific murders are only a symptom of a deeper malaise. Life is hell for the living too. Whole populations — millions of Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims and Christians — are being forced to live in terror, unsure of when and from where the assault will come.

Recently three writers were killed by fascist forces. Dr. Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and M.M.Kalburgi were killed in cold blood and none of the culprits were arrested so far.

A hysteria has been unleashed by Hindutva forces over beef eating habit of vast majority of Indians. Three people were killed over this hysteria recenlty. Mohammad Aqlaq was lynched to death in Dadri in Uttar Pradesh, on the mere rumour of storing beef in his house, which later turned out to be mutton in forensic examination. Then Noman was beaten to death in the presence of police in Himachal Pradesh over the rumours that he was transporting cows. Lastly Zahid Rasool Bhat of Kashmir was killed in a petrol bomb attack over the rumour of cow slaughter.

Recently, Kerala house was raided by police in New Delhi over an allegation that the restuarant in the house was serving beef in blatant violation of the laws, including the federal rights of a state of the union of India. Although beef (especially cow meat) is banned in most of the states in India, beef is not banned in Kerala, West Bengal and several North Eastern states

On 2nd November, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) threatened to behead Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah if he “dared to eat beef”. Shivamogga district level leader of the BJP SN Channabasappa also said that he would “play with his (severed) head”. Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had said that he would eat beef if he wished, and that the BJP did not have the right to question him on it.

Popular Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan was asked to go to Pakistan and also alleged him to be a Pakistan agent by several senior leaders of BJP, when he said that there is “growing intolerance” in the country and nobody can question his patriotism.

BJP MP Yogi Adityanath compared him to Pakistani terrorist and 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed, and said he is “welcome” to go to Pakistan. BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya said the actor lives in India but his “soul (aatma)” is in Pakistan .

It is in this context Arundhati Roy decided to return the National Film Award she won for Best Screenplay in 1989, for the film "In Which Annie Gives it Those Ones."

Here is her statement in full:

Although I do not believe that awards are a measure of the work we do, I would like to add the National Award for Best Screenplay that I won in 1989 to the growing pile of returned awards. Also, I want to make it clear that I am not returning this award because I am “shocked” by what is being called the “growing intolerance” being fostered by the present government. First of all, “intolerance” is the wrong word to use for the lynching, shooting, burning and mass murder of fellow human beings. Second, we had plenty of advance notice of what lay in store for us — so I cannot claim to be shocked by what has happened after this government was enthusiastically voted into office with an overwhelming majority. Third, these horrific murders are only a symptom of a deeper malaise. Life is hell for the living too. Whole populations — millions of Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims and Christians — are being forced to live in terror, unsure of when and from where the assault will come.

Today, we live in a country in which, when the thugs and apparatchiks of the New Order talk of “illegal slaughter”, they mean the imaginary cow that was killed — not the real man who was murdered. When they talk of taking “evidence for forensic examination” from the scene of the crime, they mean the food in the fridge, not the body of the lynched man. We say we have “progressed”, but when Dalits are butchered and their children burned alive, which writer today can freely say, like Babasaheb Ambedkar once did, that “to the untouchables, Hinduism is a veritable chamber of horrors”, without getting attacked, lynched, shot or jailed? Which writer can write what Saadat Hasan Manto wrote in his “Letters to Uncle Sam”? It doesn’t matter whether we agree or disagree with what is being said. If we do not have the right to speak freely, we will turn into a society that suffers from intellectual malnutrition, a nation of fools. Across the subcontinent it has become a race to the bottom — one that the New India has enthusiastically joined. Here too now, censorship has been outsourced to the mob.

I am very pleased to have found (from somewhere way back in my past) a National Award that I can return, because it allows me to be a part of a political movement initiated by writers, filmmakers and academics in this country who have risen up against a kind of ideological viciousness and an assault on our collective IQ that will tear us apart and bury us very deep if we do not stand up to it now. I believe what artists and intellectuals are doing right now is unprecedented, and does not have a historical parallel. It is politics by other means. I am so proud to be part of it. And so ashamed of what is going on in this country today.

Postscript: For the record, I turned down the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2005 when the Congress was in power. So please spare me that old Congress-versus-BJP debate. It has gone way beyond all that. Thanks.