My protest against intolerance continues: Nayantara Sahgal

KOLKATA: Noted writer Nayantara Sahgal, who has refused to accept her literary award back, today wrote to the Sahitya Akademi saying her protest against intolerance continues.

"Let me make it clear that I have in no way 'reconsidered' my decision. My protest and that of other writers continues against the continuing attacks on freedom of expression," Sahgal said in a letter to the secretary of the Akademi.

She reminded the literature body that she had returned the award in protest against the "Akademi's silence over the murder of the Kannada writer M M Kalburgi and earlier of Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare in Maharashtra".

She said it is the literature body which seems to have done some reconsidering since its letter says that the Akademi has no policy of accepting returned awards.

"It is a pity that the Akademi has taken so many months to make this statement of policy. The cheque I sent you in October is in any case no longer valid," the letter reads.

She said if they are returning the now invalid cheque the decision was their's and not hers.