A group of Sikh protesters on Friday expressed anguish against writers returning their awards over the “climate of intolerance” in the country. Questioning the silence of those authors on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots issue, they burnt books in protest.
“Nothing concrete has happened so far on anti-1984 riots. Committee after comm-ittee, promises after promises have been made; accused being given clean chits and more drama has happened since then, but no justice has been done. Why didn’t the author comm-unity question the intolerance atmosphere then,” said Gurch-aran Singh Babbar, the author of Sarkari Qatl-e-aam, which is an anecdotal account of the riots.
The book was banned in 1998 after a petitioner, Suresh Chauhan, went to a local court saying the work had abused the judiciary, hurt feelings of many people and could trigger fresh riots. The ban was, however, lifted later.
led by Babbar, protesters burnt over 500 copies of the book at Jantar Mantar against the delay in justice in pending cases of the 1984 riots. Police tried to douse the fire and detained few of the protesters.
“Why a similar civil outrage was not witnessed when the 1984 Sikh riots shook the nation and the victims have been denied justice till dateIJ” Babbar said.
At least 36 writers, including leading names like Nayantara Sahgal, Ashok Vajpeyi, Uday Prakash and K Veerabhadrappa, have returned their Sahitya Akademi awards, and five writers stepped down from official positions of the literary body, protesting against its “silence” over “rising intolerance”.
