As writers across the country return their honours and many member-writers quit the Sahitya Akademi, well-known Malayalam novelist and a member of the Akademi’s Executive Committee, C Radhakrishnan, has warned that such acts would only erode the institution’s autonomy.

“The Sahitya Akademi is the only cultural institution with total autonomy in the country,” the 76-year-old Radhakrishnan, himself an Akademi Award winner, told BusinessLine . “The resignations will weaken the Akademi and ultimately lead to government intrusion into its autonomy,” he said, terming them ‘irresponsible’.

He pointed out that there had been attempts by past governments in the past to change the autonomous character of the Akademi and bring it in line with other academies and cultural institutions where senior functionaries were all appointed by the government.

Radhakrishnan, who said the Akademi was helpless in checking violence such as the lynching of a 50-year-old man in Uttar Pradesh’s Dadri, however, pointed out that it was meeting on October 23 to discuss the issue. He said the meeting might pass a resolution against the violence.

He said the Central Government had no role in the running of the institution and that the government, unlike in other State-funded academies and cultural institutions, could not nominate members or functionaries to it.

He also said there was no point in announcing the return of the awards given away by the Akademi several years ago. “The writers who had selected the awardees have all passed away; and, there is no provision at the Akademi to receive the awards back,” he noted.

Radhakrishnan also said communal polarisation was increasing at an alarming speed and that the country was at a ‘flash point’.

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