There are some people who are cynical about the cultural personalities returning their awards to the Government of India as a protest. But I read it as a political statement of major significance. Whenever the State gives an award to an artist, it means four things: 1. The creativity/social concerns of the artist is recognised by a wider public, 2. The artist will be recognised more in the media which would facilitate and enhance his/her further work as well as the social concerns represented through such work, 3. It also creates a natural competition among the artists which facilitates the States to control the community of artists, writers and film makers by making them compete among themselves and thereby strengthen the policy of `Divide and Rule’, 4. It also represents an image of an artist bowing down to the Government to receive the award. But when a series of artists, writers and film makers reject their awards given by the Government, they stand `above the governance’ itself. And that is what has happened in India today. Twelve National Awards, four Padma Bhushan Awards and 40 Sahitya Academi Awards were returned to Narendra Modi Government as a protest in just 18 months of BJP rule. This has never happened in the entire history of modern India. I hereby express my deepest admiration to all the cultural personalities in India who have taken this bold and courageous step in this period of deep social and political crisis initiated by the communal fascists under Modi’s regime. In its larger analysis, we have to observe it as a cultural statement on the political turmoil faced by the people of this country. It is also a symptom of the apparent moral crumbling of the Narendra Modi government. Now Modi has to decide: `To Be or Not to Be!’
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