NEW DELHI: The Human Resource Development Ministry has severely upbraided the Sahitya Academy for honoring the Punjabi poet Prof. Harinder Singh Mehboob for his 828-page book Jhanan di Ral which “vilifies” former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and eulogizes her assassin Beant Singh.
The Ministry has asked the Academy to immediately take “remedial action” and institute an inquiry.
The HRD Minister Arjun Singh is also learnt to be extremely upset with the manner in which the Academy has attempted to whitewash the affair. He is said to be particularly unhappy with Academy President Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya’s statement recently.
Dr .Bhattacharya while admitting the Academies “unfortunate” lapse had repeated the defence adopted by Amrita Pritam who headed the jury that gave the award The Academy President said the two footnotes that had been inked out in the copy of the book received by the jury had given the offending poem “a general meaning and its full import was unfortunately missed.”
Arjun Singh has also not taken kindly to Dr. Bhattacharya’s remarks about the controversy being “unseemly” and his statement that “we are making too much of an issue blowing it up out of proportion”
In a strongly-worded letter the Secretary (Culture) Bhaskar Ghose conveyed to the Sahitya Academy Secretary. Prof Indra Nath Choudhury the Governments deep concern and said the controversy had caused “deep anguish to the millions of people who venerate Gandhi.”
Ghose wrote that the Academies inquiry should look into “the circumstances under which a book with erasures was circulated to the jury and thereafter considered for an award Severely indicting the Academy Ghose observed that “our understanding is that such a book has never been considered before” and pointedly added that this was not the first time than an award had led to a controversy.
Article extracted from this publication >>
