Progressive writers plan parallel meet in Karnataka

BENGALURU: The 86th Akhila Bharata Kannada Sahitya Sammelana (ABKSS), which will begin on Friday in Haveri, has assumed political overtones ahead of the assembly polls, with a section of progressive writers deciding to boycott it.
They plan to hold a parallel meet in Bengaluru on Sunday. They are upset the annual convention has allegedly ignored some prominent Muslim and Dalit writers to "appease the government" that funds the event.
"ABKSS is a prestigious literary event... but the event has been designed in a manner to appease the BJP and its ideology. Writers from Muslim and Dalit communities have been deliberately kept out of the event without being invited," alleged Purushottam Bilimale, an acclaimed writer and scholar in folk literature.
He said there are more than 600 Muslim Kannada writers, including Dada Peer Jaiman, recipient of the Kendriya Sahitya Academy award last year, but they all have been ignored. Chand Pasha was the only Muslim poet who was invited to a poetry session, and he has decided to boycott it.
"We have decided to boycott the Haveri event, and this is not the first time that sections of the lower strata of society are being ignored and humiliated," claimed DG Sagar, a member of the Dalit Aikya Horata Samiti.
Many progressive writers, including Banu Mushtaq, Mudnakudu Chinnaswamy, and Banjagere Jayaprakash, are taking the lead in organising the parallel meet called Jana Sahitya Sammelana. This is akin to the parallel meet organised in 1979, when organisers of the Sahitya Sammelana held in Dharmasthala allegedly ignored Dalit writers, and it spawned a new genre of Kannada literature, Bandaya (protest literature).
KSP: 11 members of community invited
Kannada Sahitya Parishat president Mahesh Joshi said Muslim writers have been given adequate representation; 11 members of the community have been invited, of whom three have been invited to the poetry session. In all, 154 writers and thinkers have been invited for 32 sessions. "Those who are raising objections should understand that it is a literary event and invitees are chosen based on their literary credentials, not on caste or religious lines," he said.