Dear Award Returnee, you are irrelevant to common man; An open letter
Dear Award Returnee,
May I submit, humbly, that you are just wasting your time; you
are not achieving your objectives that you set out to. Let me explain.
Why are awards being returned? As stated by many of award
returnees, this action is to protest, to highlight the growing intolerance in
the society and the threat to freedom of expression; to artists, writers and
film makers and also to sensitize people against such a social environment.
Therein lies the problem.
That problem being that the man on the street does not know who
you are, what did you do to get an award, what you claim to fame is and what is
your real reason for doing what you are doing now.
No. Do not take me wrong. I have no intention of running
down your achievements in literature, art or cinema or trivializing the awards,
my limited point being that the common man is not able to relate himself to
you, your achievements, awards as well as the reason for returning them.
The common man is going about his day to day life as he or
she usually does, going through his day to day life, feeling happy when life
gives him a fair hand, feeling anguished when life serves a bad one, going thru
the life’s grind, with equanimity or in an agitated state, without coming
across the intolerance that you talk of or hate that you warn us about or even
about the lack of liberties you are ranting about.
It is as if common man and you are living in a different
eco-system and these two eco-systems hardly
 |
| Searching for Intolerance |
Your eco-system dwells in litfests, filmfests, seminars,
book reading sessions, workshops, television studios. It breeds on poverty,
misery, dirt, grime, disease and death, it derives sustenance from class wars,
caste conflicts and communal conflagrations and finds protection & patronage
from an indulgent, collusive government.
Continued existence of human misery and conflict is what
keeps this eco system alive; status quo is its life giver.
On the other hand, the eco system common man lives in is
vastly different. It dwells in the workplaces, fields, factories or places
where economic activity takes place. Despite starting from the same base of
poverty & misery, the daily grind to survive is what gives it roots, aspirations
provide the sustenance, hope of a better & prosperous tomorrow nurtures it
and hardwork, keep it protected.
This ecosystem does not wallow in self pity, works at
changing what is today into a better tomorrow and continuous change is what
keeps it alive.
These two eco systems are so removed from each other that
they might even be existing in different
time frames. Or may be that analogy is actually true! Your ecosystem is
a throwback to the 60s whereas common man has embraced change and adopted the aspirational
model of India beyond 90s.
This disconnect becomes more pronounced when you talk to people
around you.
A Khalid Hosseini and Amitav Ghosh reading, 25 year old Rashmi
Aware says, “Don’t know about them (award
returnees), never heard of these guys. And to think that I read 3 to 4
books a month. May be their books never got sold. They should get someone known
to us to make an impact”
“Intolerance would be there. We don’t feel it as we are
living in Western India, go to North and you would find it.”
A middle aged Rajesh
Sharma says, “Possible that they have squeezed every benefit out of the award
they got. Nothing more to be gained now by keeping it with them!”
37 year old Rehman Khan believes intolerance is there. “I am
sure India has become intolerant. Though we may not feel it around us, it must
be there, somewhere. All these panellists on television would not be lying, na?”
27 year old Sukhvinder Singh says, “Who has the time for all
these people, yaar. Chetan Bhagat ne to kuchh nahin kiya na?”
So, dear award returnees, your problem is not about timing
of award wapsi. We all know that the unfelt guilt felt during those times would
have been kept trapped within you and guilt is like energy, once there, it
can’t be destroyed, only transformed or transferred and this is the most
convenient time to do so.
Even the means by which the award was won does not matter.
We, in India have a tradition of Kings coming to the court and throwing a
string of pearls at their favourite singer, dancer, jester, bard or even
goldsmith, ironsmith or a carpenter. Contemporary kings just replaced the
pearls with awards. It has been going on for ages and would continue in future
too.
Whether intolerance has gone up? We can find that by a
simple test. You have read the comments above with names of people who gave
them. If after reading the comments you went through a process of convincing yourself
that this set of people does not represent common man or if you are justifying
their responses by linking to their names, religions, you are intellectually intolerant.
When you believe that you are always right and begin treating differing
opinions worthless enough to be dismissed, you are intolerant. And yes, in that
case, intolerance is increasing in the society.
As Kabir said long ago.
Intolerance Jo Dekhan
Main Chala, Intolerant Naa Milya Koye
Jo Munn Khoja Apnaa, To Mujhse Intolerant Naa Koye
By the way,
you would know, Kabir never won an award.
Or we won’t know him either.
