SAHITYA ACADEMI

                THE SAHITYA ACADEMI

                                              ~Aachal Burande

                 The Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, is an organisation dedicated to the promotion of literature in the languages of India.
                   The Sahitya Akademi was formally inaugurated by the Government of India on 12 March 1954. The Government of India Resolution, which set forth the constitution of the Akademi, described it as a national organisation to work actively for the development of Indian letters and to set high literary standards, to foster and co-ordinate literary activities in all the Indian languages and to promote through them all the cultural unity of the country.
                  

                        Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, is the central institution for literary dialogue, publication and promotion in the country and the only institution that undertakes literary activities in 24 Indian languages, including English. Over the 56 years of its dynamic existence, it has ceaselessly endeavored to promote good taste and healthy reading habits, to keep alive the intimate dialogue among the various linguistic and literary zones and groups through seminars, lectures, symposia, discussions, readings and performances, to increase the pace of mutual translations through workshops and individual assignments and to develop a serious literary culture through the publications of journals, monographs, individual creative works of every genre, anthologies, encyclopedias, dictionaries, bibliographies, who's who of writers and histories of literature.
                  Sahitya Akademi publishes three literary journals — Indian Literature (bi-monthly in English), Samkaleen Bharatiya Sahitya (bi-monthly in Hindi) and Samskrita Pratibha (half-yearly in Sanskrit).It has also launched a new project called The Encyclopedia of Indian Poetics.The Akademi holds an annual week-long ‘Festival of Letters’, usually in February with Award-giving ceremony, Samvatsar Lecture and a National Seminar.
                    Sahitya Akademi Fellowship is the highest honour conferred by the Akademi on a writer, by electing him as its Fellow. This honour is reserved for the ‘immortals of literature’ It was established in 1968 and the first elected fellow was Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan.Sahitya Akademi Award (Devnagari: साहित्य अकादमी पुरस्कार) is a literary honor in India which Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of the most outstanding books of literary merit published in any of the major Indian languages. Sahitya Akdemi Award is the second highest honour conferred by the Sahitya akademi next to Sahitya akademi Fellowship. There are total 24 awards given by Sahitya academi in a year. Malayalam fiction writer Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai received the Akademi Award from the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru. Sri Visvanatha Satyanarayana, pioneer of Telugu fiction and Jnanpith winner, being honoured as Fellow of Sahitya Akademi. Some of them are Bhasha Samman Award, Prize for Translation, Bal Sahitya Puraskar, Yuva Puraskar, Anand Coomarswamy Fellowships, Premchand Fellowships, etc.
               

           Sahitya Academi award was suffered with many critical situations as more than 20 writers of different languages across the country have returned their Sahitya Akademi Awards so far. Most of the writers were 'hurt' with the spread of "communal poison" and "rising intolerance" in India.
                   The writers are returning their Sahitya Akademi Awards as a mark of their protest against the central government-led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Many reasons are behind this protest but main reasons are murder of well known writer MM Kalburgi. Professor MM Kalburgi was killed by unidentified persons in Dharwad, Karnataka in Aug 2015. His murderers are roaming free. Protesting writers claimed that Kalburgi was killed for his work which had come under fire "not just from fellow Lingayats but also from the RSS, Bajrang Dal and Sri Ram Sene." Second reason behind it was protesting writers demanded for a "special session" to pass "anti-superstition bill" which can fight "fundamentalist forces and media terrorism". Third was insecurity among writers i.e. Uday Prakash, who received Sahitya Akademi Award in 2010-11, said everyone were disturbed for the growing insecurity among writers. Fourth thing is India's culture of diversity is under threat. Returning their awards, writers such as Nayantara Sahgal and Ashok Vajpeyi said, "India's culture of diversity and the right to dissent was under vicious assault." Fifth reason was the murder of a man over beef ban issue, Ghulam Nabi Khayal, a writer and poet from Kashmir, returned his award and said, "I can't fight these communal forces physically so I have decided to lodge a silent protest by returning the award." Also, In Uttar Pradesh, a Muslim is killed on the basis of rumours that he has stored beef in his house, and in Jammu, Kashmiri truck drivers are attacked on the mere suspicion that a cow has been slaughtered in the district. This is not the country that our great leaders had envisioned. Next issue was silence of Sahitya Akademi. No writer has freedom to write his own thoughts n feels about current issues. All these will lead to great reform in Sahitya academi.