The past few weeks has been a season of the so-called 'awards wapsi' in India. It began when more than 35 of the country's leading authors and poets returned their awards to the Sahitya Akademi, India's national academy of letters. These are awards that are prestigious symbols of literary achievement. The move came as a protest against the literary body's silence on the murder of rationalist and writer M M Kalburgi (a receipient of the Akademi Award), and incidents like the lynching of a Muslim man in Dadri, near Delhi, for allegedly eating beef. Writer after writer returned their award to protest what they saw as assaults on free speech and dissent. Nayantara Sehgal, who was among the first to return her award, wrote that her gesture was "In memory of the Indians who have been murdered, in support of all Indians who uphold the right to dissent, and of all dissenters who now live in fear and uncertainty".
After an unseemly delay, these protests were finally acknowledged by the Akademi, which issued a resolution condemning the murder of Professor Kalburgi and other intellectuals. By this time, however, reverberations from this unprecedented movement were felt across the country and abroad. This gesture of dissent by writers was soon followed by a letter of protest by various artists, as well as by leading scientists who returned their honours. A group of ten filmmakers (including Anand Patwardhan, Dibakar Banerjee, Nishtha Jain and Rakesh Sharma) too issued a powerful statement and returned their National Awards. Their criticisms were wide ranging, addressing the government's "stonewalling" of students protesting the appointment of officials at Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune, and the growing intolerance in India. However, in Mumbai's mainstream film-industry circles, these events may as well not have happened.
One rare and early voice speaking up in support of the writers was the noted director and poet Gulzar. "We have never witnessed this kind of religious intolerance," he said in a television interview, "At least, we were fearless in expressing ourselves."
Predictably, the venerable 81 year old then had to face the full wrath of online bhakts, who flooded him with their trademark mix of vitriol and poorly punctuated abuse. Gulzar was attacked for being a 'Muslim', due to his nom de plume (his actual name is Sampooran Singh Kalra and he is from a Sikh family) and for his 'selective outrage' (his 1975 film Aandhi was banned during the Emergency). In fact, Gulzar is no ordinary Bollywood lyricist. His 1996 film Maachis depicted the Congress government's atrocities in Punjab in the 1980s, and his angry poetry in response to the Delhi gangrape in 2012 became part of the popular imagination of the time. Within the film industry, Gulzar commands great respect and stature. But when the storm over his comments broke, only a few names from this fraternity stepped forward to defend him. Most remained silent.