At last count the number was 24 and climbing. It’s interesting that the writers who are returning their awards thick and fast are a varied lot — old, young, men, women — who have written in Hindi and Urdu, Kannada and Konkani, Punjabi, Gujarati and English. They hail from Delhi and Dehradun, Karnataka and Kashmir, Gujarat and Goa, Punjab and elsewhere. If nothing else, this is something we cannot ignore.

But wait a minute. Perhaps there is something there we are not seeing or understanding. Let’s turn to our Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma. He has words of wisdom too: the Sahitya Akademi award, he says, has nothing to do with the government (of course, the head of the Akademi would have us believe otherwise but that’s another story). It’s an award given by writers to writers. “It is their personal choice to return it… we accept it.”

Odd though, if it is the writer’s personal choice to return the award, and it isn’t a government award, why would the government need to accept it? Further the minister said, “If they say they are unable to write, let them stop writing, we will then see.” This defiant back-to-the-wall response isn’t uncommon. When you know you have no rational response, you take recourse to this kind of statement. None of the writers has said they want to stop writing or is unable to write. Why then should the minister issue that warning to them? What will the government see or do if the writers stop writing? Perhaps they’ll celebrate the death of free voices. Fortunately that will not happen.

The Sahitya Akademi’s response was similar, and also similarly back-to-the-wall: in reference to Nayantara Sahgal, it was something graceless like she’s taken all the advantages the award carries, and benefited from it and now she’s returning it. Once again this is odd. The likes of Nayantara Sahgal or Ashok Vajpeyi or Krishna Sobti and all the others who have protested, do not need the award to give them legitimacy. Rather, by accepting it, they are the ones who legitimise the award. The award comes to them as recognition, as appreciation, as honour for what they have done, not as encouragement for what they might do.

But it matters to writers precisely because it is a peer award, and because it is an Indian award. What better thing for a creative person than to be recognised by one’s own constituency?

There’s another question doing the rounds. Will this protest have any impact at the ground level? I’m not entirely sure how we can define ground level — but the unfortunate deaths of Dabholkar and Pansare and Kalburgi, the threats to the Mumbai launch of Neither a Hawk, Nor a Dove by former Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, the blackening of Sudheendra Kulkarni’s face, all of these show that there is a very real worry at the ground level, a very real worry that free thinking people, questioning people, protesting people, rational people will derail the process of homogenisation that we are now seeing in India.

I don’t need to make the links with the entire agitation on the question of eating beef, or the murder and near-murder in Dadri (and the lame explanations that were offered after) or indeed the attacks on NGOs, or on individuals. The writers’ protest may have begun with the Dadri murder, and Kalburgi’s killing, but it’s rapidly growing much bigger. Each of them has referred to the growing intolerance in the country, and the fear of lawlessness with the almost tacit sanction of extra-legal and violent forms of protest. And this is why the protest is spreading.

Perhaps it’s time the State sat up and took notice: sometimes things begin in small ways, sometimes simmering anger and resentment find articulation because of one incident. For the writers who are returning their awards it’s been two unfortunate deaths — those of Kalburgi and Mohammed Akhlaq — that have served as catalysts. This may seem like a small initiative, but it has the potential of turning into something much bigger.

A sensitive, responsive State takes note of the democratic, legal protests of its citizens and responds to it, takes responsibility for its failures that have led people to this protest — for there is no other word for it — these are failures. But that is not happening.

There was a time many years ago when, as activists in the women’s movement, we protested about many things, including discriminatory laws, terrible implementation, indifferent State systems and outright hostility. We were not always listened to, but we were not scoffed at either. And whether the State listened or not, our protests were not met with insults, or with defiance. Is it too much to hope for such respect for our writer protestors today? Is it too much to ask that the State, even our silent-on-such-issues Head of State, express some concern?

Urvashi Butalia is an editor, publisher and director of Zubaan

blink@thehindu.co.in

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