A little over two years after Tamil writer Perumal Murugan was forced to announce his “death” as a writer, another author is being hounded into silence. Those who have been running an online campaign against Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, a Sahitya Akademi winner from Jharkhand, have accused him of insulting Santhali honour and women in his writing, and denounced him as a pornographer.
It has been, since December 2015, a vicious and personal smear campaign. Responding to this concerted bullying now, the Jharkhand government, with help from the main Opposition party, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, has not only chosen the less honourable option of backing the moral police but is now leading a witch-hunt against the writer, an Adivasi himself — in the name of defending Santhali asmita. It has banned Shekhar’s The Adivasi Will Not Dance, a searing and acclaimed collection of stories on Adivasi life published two years ago, suspended the writer from his job as a medical officer in Pakur and threatened to file an FIR against him.
While Shekhar’s detractors have every right to criticise his work and its representations, they do not hold any veto over who can speak for the Santhali. Nor can they justify their shameful role in drumming up hate against one of their own. In being abandoned both by the government that is bound by the constitution to defend his rights, and the community that has turned against him, Shekhar is an author cornered. How does that bode well for a democracy in its 70th year?
