Nayantara Sahgal's Invitation To Lit Meet Withdrawn, Draws Criticism // Nayantara Sahgal’s speech for Marathi Sahitya Sammelan: In some cases, our duty to hurt sentiments
Nayantara Sahgal's Invitation To Lit Meet Withdrawn, Draws Criticism
Nayantara Sahgal’s speech for Sahitya Sammelan: In some cases, our duty to hurt sentiments
Political leaders and
authors on Monday condemned the decision of the organisers of the All India
Marathi Literary Meet to withdraw the invitation extended to noted author
Nayantara Sahgal.
The decision to
withdraw the invitation to Sahgal (91), who was earlier at the forefront of the
“award wapsi” campaign, was taken after the MNS threatened to disrupt the
function, the organisers said on Sunday. Maharashtra Navnirman
Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray issued a statement on Monday, admitting that one
of his local party workers had opposed Sahgal’s presence at the literary meet.
However, he added that “as the party chief, I am not against inviting her”.
“If Sahgal’s presence
at the All India Literary Meet is transcending into a cultural exchange, I or
my party will not oppose it,” Thackeray said, adding that he regretted the
annoyance caused to the supporters of such literary events. Sahgal, a noted English-language
author, was to inaugurate the 92nd literary meet on January 11 in the presence
of Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in Yavatmal district. Mumbai Congress chief
Sanjay Nirupam criticised the decision to cancel Sahgal’s invitation, alleging
that it was done at the behest of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)... read more:
Nayantara Sahgal’s speech for Sahitya Sammelan: In some cases, our duty to hurt sentiments
Written
by Nayantara Sahgal
This is an emotional
moment for me and I feel privileged to be here with you. I feel I am standing
in the shadow of great Maharashtrians – Mahadev Govind Ranade who founded this
sammelan, and whose name is part of the modern history of our country, and the
distinguished Marathi writers who have chaired its conventions, and all the
writers who have taken part in its sessions and whose writing has enriched the
great creative enterprise known as Indian literature.
It is also an
emotional moment for me because of my own connection with Maharashtra through
my father, Ranjit Sitaram Pandit. I would like to tell you a little about him.
He was a Sanskrit scholar from a family of distinguished Sanskrit scholars and
he translated three Sanskrit classics into English: Mudra Rakshasa, Kalidas’s
Ritusamhara and Rajtarangini. Rajtarangini is the twelfth-century history of
the kings of Kashmir by Kalhana, and it had a special fascination for my father
because his two great loves were Sanskrit and Kashmir. He worked on this
translation during two of his jail terms during British rule and dedicated it
to his Kashmiri father-in-law Pandit Motilal Nehru. His brother-in-law, Jawaharlal Nehru,
wrote an introduction to this work when it was published. I am deeply grateful
to Dr Aruna Dhere and Shri Prashant Talnikar for their great labour of
translating this massive history into my father’s, and their own, native
tongue, Marathi. I know that nothing would have made him happier.
Both my parents took
part in the national movement for freedom under Mahatma Gandhi. My
mother, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, was imprisoned three times and my father four
times. During his fourth imprisonment he fell seriously ill in the terrible
conditions and environment of Bareilly jail, and was given no medical treatment
and my mother was not informed how very ill he was. Yet he had refused to ask
for his release. When she was finally informed of his condition she was allowed
to have a twenty-minute interview with him. It took place, according to the
rule, in the office of the jail superintendent and under his watchful eye,
which gave a political prisoner no privacy with his visitor.
It shocked my
mother to see him brought in on a stretcher. His head had been shaved and his
body was emaciated. She almost broke down at the sight of him but somehow she
held back her tears because she knew he would not want her to cry in front of
the jailer. He told her why he wouldn’t ask for the favour of being released.
He said “I have fought with the lions, Gandhi and Nehru. Do you want me to
behave like a jackal now?” She knew she couldn’t change his mind so she
controlled herself and sat near the stretcher and held his hand, and gave him
news of home and the children, and what was growing in the garden he loved.
When the government released him at last, it was only to die about three weeks
later. Many years later, after independence, my mother was India’s High
Commissioner in Britain and sat next to Prime Minister Winston Churchill at
a lunch, and he said to her, “We killed your husband, didn’t we?” It was an
admission that took her by surprise... read more:
https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/nayantara-sehgal-marathi-sahitya-sammelan-speech-5527383/
