New Delhi 09 Oct 2015
The Social Democratic Party of India, (SDPI) has welcomed the returning of the prestigious national literary awards to the government by two well-known litterateurs in protest to spree of violence engulfing the country leading to communal cauldron boiling especially in the poll bound states.
SDPI national president A. Sayeed in a statement said that intellectuals like Nayantara Sahgal, Ashok Vajpeyi and Uday Prakash love their country and countrymen above all else. However, India’s tragedy is that the intelligentsia is rendered useless by the thugs and the psychopaths who, drunk with power, are wreaking havoc on the nation.
Sayeed said: “We, as a society do not value any writer’s or an intellectual’s contributions. All we care for is which caste you belong to and which party you may support. There is no room for constructive criticism. Because, we as a country have stooped so low that we just criticize every voice against the ruling supremo. Isn’t this the soft terrorism of targeting any kind of dissidence? This is what is exactly manifesting in physical forms in Dadri, Muzaffarnagar, brutal killings of writers, intellectuals, etc.
He said that Ms. Sahgal speaking her mind has rightly pointed out in an open letter titled “Unmaking of India”, referring to the lynching of an innocent Muslim by a fierce mob in Dadri on Delhi outskirts over suspicion of eating beef, and also the killings of renowned Kannada writer M M Kalburgi and rationalists Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare. This shows that BJP and its Government have got no credibility among intellectuals. Violence and terrorism are on the increase due to its ideology. Innocents and minorities are at the receiving end and have become helpless, he added.
However, Sayeed said, the act of returning awards do not in any way would stop the hatred culminating in the hearts of one another. How can the rationale writers can expect that mere PM’s speaking can stop these incidents which have been in the society in one or the other form since time unknown?
Prime Minister Narendra Modi being under pressure, probably seeing the BJP graph dipping in poll-bound Bihar, opened his mouth about communal violence terming the rabble rousers’ provocative statements are intended for political gains and appealed for communal harmony between Muslims and Hindus and together fighting against poverty. However, he spoke nothing about taking to task neither the BJP leaders delivering venomous speeches filled with hatred nor the perpetrators of shameful Dadri lynching and other such rampant violent incidents across the country on Muslims, Christians and Dalits, the statement said.