Oh No! Another open letter to the Sahitya Akademi

Dear Akademi,

You do not know me or of me yet, but I thought it important to let you know of my existence well before I begin existing. I would also like to state right up that my motive for writing this letter is purely selfish and does not have anything to do with your style of functioning or the absence of it, so please do keep an open mind as you read this.

I am writing this letter to officially intimate you that, after much introspection, I have decided to return my Sahitya Akademi Award. I am doing this in advance to pre-empt the Akademi deciding to award me with a recognition at some hitherto unforeseen future date. I am hopeful that you will understand how constrained I am at taking this momentous step because of the current atmosphere in the literary circles of India.

As the Akademi may be aware, those who are returning their awards are being reproached for being selective in the timing of their protest. These writers with a conscience, depending on how long back they had received their just rewards, are being asked why they did not return their awards in 1984 or 1992 or 2002. I think the idea motivating such criticism is that if your conscience was not hurt in those years why is it being itchy now.

It is to forestall such allegations being levelled at me that I have decided to return my award even before I can receive it - thereby proving to the conscience keepers of this great nation that mine, at least, is in the clear. Please do accept this humble plea of mine so that years down the line no one will have reason to point fingers at me saying I did not register my protest in 2015. This is my proof, that while the Akademi did not, I kept my conscience clean. While I am writing this letter, I also thought that I might make a couple of modest suggestions as well. Firstly, may I suggest that the Akademi put in a clause, a sort of asterisk-marked conditions apply, to the awards that it presents from here on. The condition to receiving the award should be that once received, the recipient, under no circumstance, is allowed to go back on the covenant that is established between the Akademi and the recipient - that the former is the giver and the latter is the receiver. This core act should be made legally binding and cannot be reversed without attracting severe punishment guaranteed by law. If the Akademi accepts this suggestion, then it shall stand adequately insured against any untoward agitation that might advertently or inadvertently get sparked in the hearts and minds of future literary greats. They will perforce have to come up with other means of cleansing their conscience unless they want to risk long jail terms and/or hefty fines well beyond their meagre means.

My second suggestion, if the Akademi does not see it fit to include the conditions apply clause to its awards, is that the Akademi should make a request to the government, through the esteemed office of the culture minister, that the Akademi should be retired and a new literary sansthan should take its place. The logic is two-fold - firstly, if the Akademi does not exist, the award winners will not be able to return their awards to something which is not there and, secondly, this government has already proven itself up to the task of changing a name here and there to create new entities. The Akademi has nothing to lose as the new organisation can retain all its assets - animate and inanimate, and it would still be a brand new organisation with no baggage of returned awards. The Akademi could even suggest that the new organisation be named Bhartia Sahitya Sansthan or better still Rashtriya Sahitya Sewak Sansthan or RSSS - it somehow sounds more patriotic than Sahitya Akademi.

I end this letter in the solemn hope that the Sahitya Akademi will take this in the right spirit, excusing the angst of a poor lowly writer-to-be. Please do not hold my sentiments against me because I am just another emotional human being swayed by the frothing of communalism around me.