BJP National Executive member H Raja is not known to mince words, and the leader from Tamil Nadu has now trained his guns on the Sahitya Akademi and author Perumal Murugan.
Talking to The News Minute, H Raja said, “There was a news report that Perumal Murugan will be honoured with the Sahitya Akademi award. I am objecting any such move. If there is no such proposal from the Sahitya Akademi representatives then I welcome it.”
Krishnasamy Nachimithu, member of the Sahitya Akademi executive board had clarified on Friday that there is no announcement from Sahitya Akademi regarding honouring Perumal Murugan’s Tamil novel ‘Madhorubagan’.
But Raja is not fully convinced if the Akademi member is indeed saying the truth. “The book has been withdrawn from circulation then how can it be given a Sahitya Award? There are filthy words used for women in the book. Perumal Murugan in his book has called ‘all women are prostitutes’. How can such a filthy book be honoured?”
He added that if such a book is honoured, it is an insult to Tamil language.
Some Hindu groups sought a ban last year on Perumal Murugan’s novel ‘Madhorubagan’ alleging that the he portrayed Kailasanathar temple in Tiruchengode and women devotees in bad light. These outfits demanded the arrest of the writer, burnt copies of the book and finally forced the author to leave his hometown.
After one month of repeated protests, Perumal declared that he will no longer live as a writer.
In a Facebook post, he wrote: "Perumal Murugan, the writer is dead. As he is no God, he is not going to resurrect himself. He has no faith in rebirth. As an ordinary teacher, he will live as P Murugan. Leave him alone."
Recently, his book has won the fifth ILF Samanvay Bhasha Samman, which is an annual award for honouring the writers of Indian language to Indian Literature.
Reacting to the writers move to return Akademi and other awards, H. Raja called it “an orchestrated protest only to defame India and the Indian Government.”
In fact an angry Raja added that the Akademi itself should be dissolved for the treachery
“The Sahitya Akademi body should be dissolved as it is packed with Nehruvian and left committee who are against Hindus,” he claimed.
Raja questions why authors did not react after the 2011 Mumbai blasts under Congress regime in which more than 500-600 people had died. "Only when Dadri happened in Uttar Pradesh, why are these writers returning their awards? Why is the Central Government and Prime Minister Modi being targeted for Dadri? BJP has no connection with these killings," he says.
Talking about one of the writers, Ashok Vajpeyi who returned his Sahitya Akademi award, he said in 1985 when the country had just gone through a tragedy Mr. Vajpeyi was organizing a literature festival. When the media people asked him, “Why are you organizing such a fest when the city is going through a hard phase?” He responded by saying, “A writer never dies with the dead”.