Pune: Nine authors have resigned from the Sharad Pawar Inspire Fellowship (literature) as mentors with a "heavy heart".
They announced their resignations in a letter written to NCP working president Supriya Sule on December 29.
They cited "displeasure" over the 'proximity' between NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar and Adani group chairman Gautam Adani as the reason behind their resignation.
The letter was written a day after the Sharadchandra Pawar Centre of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence was inaugurated by Adani in Baramati.
The mentors who resigned include - Dr Nitin Rindhe, Coordinator, Sharad Pawar Inspire Fellowship ( Literature ) and other mentors, including Rajiv Naik, Ganesh Visputye, Kiran Yele, Mukund Kule, Randhir Shinde, Chandrashekhar Phansalkar, Pramid Munghate, and Sharad Naware.
In a letter addressed to Sule, the mentors said their decision came after the language used in the invitation for the inauguration of the AI centre and the felicitation of Adani, whom they described as an industrialist closely associated with political power and an ideology they oppose.
The mentors said they had been associated with the fellowship for the past four years, during which they were involved in selecting fellow writers and mentoring them.
They acknowledged that the fellowship, run by the Yashwantrao Chavan Centre, was conceived to promote book writing in Marathi and praised the organisers for giving them complete freedom, without any ideological pressure.
However, the authors said the use of religious terminology in the invitation and the honour conferred on Adani had come as a shock, as they believed Sharad Pawar stood against what they termed "regressive and socially divisive values", such as authoritarianism, monopoly, crony capitalism and religious discrimination.
While acknowledging that Sharad Pawar, as a politician and institution builder, may face political compulsions, the mentors maintained that the fellowship was a literary initiative and that their role involved engaging closely with the ideas, values and sensibilities of the fellow writers.
"If the organisers of such a literary programme (SPIF) display closeness to individuals or systems that support regressive and socially divisive values, it becomes ethically untenable for us to continue as mentors," the letter said, adding that continuing in such a situation would amount to hypocrisy.
Stating that the decision was taken with a heavy heart, the nine mentors formally announced their withdrawal from the Sharad Pawar Inspire Fellowship (Literature).
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