New Delhi: In an attempt to prevent people returning awards to make a point -- the phenomenon is colloquially called Award Waapsi — the department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture in a report tabled in the parliament on Monday recommended that the Sahitya Akademi take an undertaking from proposed awardees that they will accept the honour and not “dishonour” it in the future.
“A system may be put in place where an undertaking is taken from the proposed awardee citing acceptance of the award and that the awardees cannot dishonour the award at any point of time in future. Awards may not be given without such an undertaking. In the event that the awards are returned, the awardee shall not be considered for such award in the future,’ the panel said.
The panel said that the return of such awards is disgraceful to the country. Its report referred to an incident when 39 writers returned their awards to the Akademi in 2015 accusing it of silence over the murder of writer and rationalist M M Kalburgi.
More recently, Marathi writer Sharad Baviskar returned his government award in December last year, to protest against the state government ‘s decision to rescind their award to a translation of maoist ideologue Kobhad Ghandy’s prison memoir. Baviskar said that a decision to take back an award decided by a committee was a “fascist” decision.
“The committee observes that the awards given by each Akademi continue to be top honours for an artist in India. The committee emphasizes that Sahitya Akademi or other Akademis are apolitical organisations. There is no place for politics. The committee, therefore, suggests that whenever an award is given, the consent of the recipient must be taken, so that he/she does not return it because of political reasons; as it is disgraceful to the country,’ the report read.
{{/usCountry}}“The committee observes that the awards given by each Akademi continue to be top honours for an artist in India. The committee emphasizes that Sahitya Akademi or other Akademis are apolitical organisations. There is no place for politics. The committee, therefore, suggests that whenever an award is given, the consent of the recipient must be taken, so that he/she does not return it because of political reasons; as it is disgraceful to the country,’ the report read.
{{/usCountry}}Incidents involving the return of awards undermine the achievements of other awardees and also impact the overall prestige and reputation of the awards, the panel observed.