Kashmir litterateur returns Sahitya Akademi award

Dr Margoob Banihali: “My protest against Zahid’s killing”
 
Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
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SRINAGAR, Oct 19: Eminent Kashmiri litterateur and former Head of Department of Kashmiri Language and Literature at University of Kashmir, Prof Margoob Banihali, on Monday announced to return his Sahitya Akademi award to the Government of India as a mark of protest against the murder of a young truck driver in Udhampur.

Author of 45 books in four languages, 80-year-old Prof Banihali chose STATE TIMES to make his announcement public. “I have decided to return the Sahitya Akademi award to register my protest against the continued repression of the minorities which reached to the extent of the innocent Zahid Rasool Bhat’s brutal murder”, Prof Banihali said.

“I should have in fact returned this award in 2010 when over a hundred Kashmiri Muslims were gunned down in Police action on the streets in Kashmir. Some more compelling incidents happened even thereafter. But, this time around, I was terribly shaken with Zahid’s death after he and two others were attacked with a petrol bomb and virtually burned alive. I contacted a number of other recipients but none of them was receptive to my suggestion. Then I decided to go it alone”, Prof Banihali explained.

He said that he would contact the Sahitya Akademi authorities and return not only the shield plaque of award but also the entire amount of money he had received in 1979. “These days, it is Rs one lakh. But when I was given the award in 1980, it was Rs 25,000 or Rs 50,000”, he said. Prof Baihali has received over a dozen prestigious State and national level awards for his contribution to language and literature.

In 1979, Sahitya Akademi had selected Prof Banihali for its award in Kashmiri category. His first Kashmiri poetry collection ‘Partavistaan’ was adjudged as the best by a jury. In the following 35 years, Prof Banihali published as many as 45 books. Around 30 of his books are in Kashmiri, 5 in Urdu and 10 more in English and Persian.

In addition to ‘Partavistaan’, his publications Tajalistaan, Deedmaan, Charagaan and Khaas Ehsaan also won him remarkable appreciation from critics and academia.

Before serving as a professor and HOD of Kashmiri at University of Kashmir for 11 years, until his retirement, Prof Banihali functioned as faculty in PG department of Persian for 11 years. He also headed the University’s Centre for Central Asian Studies and Iqbal Institute.

Even as Kashmiri journalist-poet Ghulam Nabi Khayal has last week announced to return his Sahitya Akademi award in protest of the Dadri resident Mohammad Akhlaq’s killing by a frenzied group, Prof Banihali is the first among nearly two dozen Kashmiri litterateurs who is returning his Sahitya Akademi award in protest of the Kashmiri truck driver Zahid Rasool Bhat’s killing in Udhampur.

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