[Reader-list] On Aqeel Shatir

[anupam chakravartty]

http://www.hindu.com/2011/01/01/stories/2011010163691800.htm

*In Gujarat, a poet takes on Urdu Academy*

Manas Dasgupta

AHMEDABAD: Aqeel Shatir, a budding Urdu poet of the city, has decided to
take on the Gujarat Urdu Sahitya Academy, which has penalised him for
including an allegedly defamatory paragraph on Chief Minister Narendra Modi
in a foreword to his book of poems published with government aid.

Claiming that the copies of the book on sale do not contain the
objectionable paragraph, Mr. Shatir has questioned the Academy's wisdom in
seeking refund. “Will my mere returning the money restore Mr. Modi's image
among the people?”

But the Academy has not stated why Mr. Shatir's explanation is not amenable
to it; nor has it taken up his challenge to prove that the copies on sale
did not carry the objectionable paragraph. “Not me, but the Academy should
be blamed for damaging the Chief Minister's image by putting back on the
public domain a non-existent and long-forgotten issue,” he says. “How can
the damage be repaired by my paying back the money as asked by the Academy?”

The paragraph critical of Mr. Modi for the 2002 communal riots was written
by another poet Raunaq Afroz Bhiwandi, one of the famous Urdu writers who
wrote the foreword to Mr. Shatir's first book of poems Abhi Zinda Hoon Main
(I am Still Alive). The book was published in October 2008, with the
Academy's assistance of Rs.10, 000, which is meant for budding writers who
need help to bring out their works.

Mr. Shatir maintains that his poems were not based on the riots. But Mr.
Bhiwandi thought so and incorporated a paragraph against Mr. Modi in his
five-page foreword. Unfortunately, the book with the contentious paragraph
was printed before Mr. Shatir's attention was drawn to it by another Urdu
writer and Academy member Mohiuddin Bombaywala, who was among the 80-odd
recipients of the book “gifted” by Mr. Shatir during the launch.

“As soon as my attention was drawn to it, I removed the pages containing the
paragraph from all the remaining copies before they were put up for sale in
the market,” claims Mr. Shatir. “The copies gifted to the noted writers that
carried the objectionable paragraph were only meant for private
circulation.”

However, the Academy served a notice on him on November 15, more than two
years after the book was published. It asked him to explain why he should
not be directed to refund the money “with interest” for “publicly damaging”
Mr. Modi's image. His December 1 reply, explaining the position and refuting
the allegation that the copies on sale continued to carry the paragraph, was
rejected by the Academy.

A three-line order, issued by Academy Registrar Harshad Trivedi on December
24, told Mr. Shatir that his explanation “has not been accepted, and you
should immediately return the amount with interest to the Academy.”

“I am going to fight it out,” says Mr. Shatir, an amateur photo-journalist
and an STD-PCO owner.

Further, the order did not mention when he must pay back the money and the
rate of interest as well as the period of interest. “How can the
government-run Academy ask me to pay back without specifying the necessary
details?”

In the past, Mr. Shatir tapped the Right to Information Act to pose
questions about the Academy's style of functioning and the alleged
irregularities in the disbursement of funds “in the name of rewards and
awards to the deserving writers.”

And he has vowed to carry on his work. “Whether or not I am forced to refund
the money, I am going to bombard the Academy with more searching questions
under the RTI and expose its wrongdoings.”
EOM

**