Jaipur : Noted writer and poet Ashok Vajpeyi on Saturday refused to take back the Sahitya Akademi award that he had returned stating that “intolerance levels remain high” in the country. “…Intolerance levels remain high and widespread. Look at what happened to a Dalit student driven to suicide. This is also intolerance,” Vajpeyi said on the sidelines of the ongoing Jaipur Literature festival here.
He had recently returned the D.Litt honour conferred to him by the Hyderabad Central University in protest against the “anti-dalit” attitude of authorities. Vajpeyi said although Prime Minister Narendra Modi had voiced his grief at Rohith Vemula’s suicide, he had underplayed the dalit issue. The Hindi poet was among the earliest of about 40 writers who had returned their awards in the past few months to the Sahitya Akademi in protest against the literary body’s silence on the killing of writer M M Kalburgi.
“The Sahitya Akademi failed to rise up to the occasion. Belatedly, under pressure of so many writers returning their awards the Akademi saw wisdom and took the courage to state that it is an autonomous body and condemned all forms of violence particularly against authors,” he said.–PTI
