BANGALORE: Writers have become easy targets for violent attacks, well-known novelist Shashi Deshpande said here on Saturday. Delivering the keynote address for the two-day Bangalore Literature Festival, she expressed concern over the government treating writers shabbily. “It is a sad day when a government cannot respect its artists nd scholars, a sad day for the country when the government takes the lead in vilifying its creative people.
No ountry, however economically developed, can call itself civilised if its artists, writers, scholars and thinkers are treated with contempt,” she said. Shashi Deshpande regretted that the debate over writers returning awards was characterised by misunderstanding. “The other disturbing thing is that what began as a writers’ ovement against the silence of those in power, has now, in some inexplicable manner, turned into a confrontation between two sets of writers,” she said For the first time in recent years, writers, both young and old, have come together against threats to freedom of expression. But the protests have not been taken seriously, she said, describing the current atmosphere as ugly, disturbing, and distressing. She also xpressed her unhappiness over writers boycotting events on various pretexts.
Noting that scholar M M Kalburgi had een a member of the General Council of Sahitya Akademi, she expressed dissatisfaction over how the kademi had responded to his assassination earlier this year. “Were we going to brush this matter under the arpet and ignore the serious implications of the killing of a man because of what he had written?” she asked. he dismissed suggestions that the campaign to return awards was a result of ‘herd mentality’. If it were so, articipants of the French Revolution and the Indian freedom struggle were also sheep, she remarked.