Noted Kannada film director Girish Kasaravalli to boycott Bengaluru Literature festival

Bengaluru Literature festival, hit by boycott call

November 28, 2015, NewsCrunch

Noted Kannada film director Girish Kasaravalli has announced his decision to stay away from Bengaluru Literature festival.

Speaking to a Kannada daily, Kannada Prabha, he said he had told the organisers that he would not attend the event, when they had approached him. But they still went  ahead and added his name in the list of participants, he claimed.

Malayalam writers Satchidanand,  Sara Joseph, her daughter Sangeetha Sreenivasan, Kannada writers Arif Raja, T.K. Dayanand, O L Nagabhushana Swamy have announced that they will boycott  Bengaluru Literature festival  that will be held December 5-6.

They have taken objection to the event organiser Vikram Sampath's opposition  to the writers returning Sahitya Academi awards. They also say they are not comfortable with his right-wing leanings.

Vikram Sampath, author of books on Mysore royalty and singer Gauhar Jaan, was among the signatories to a letter against the return of awards.
Dayanand, told The Telegraph: "I am for returning awards to protest injustices in society. He (Sampath) isn't. So it wouldn't be ideal for me to participate in this event," he said.

However, another section of writers who had returned awards such as Shashi Deshpande or supported them, have decided to take part in Bengaluru Literature festival. Some of them disagreed with the boycotting writers and said the event offered an opportunity to debate irrespective of the ideologies of the organisers.

A section of Kannada writes have been unhappy with Bengaluru Literature festival for giving a token presence to the State language. O L Nagabhushana Swamy said he was boycotting as the event was not giving Kannada prominence when compared  to English and Hindi.