‘Announced ‘wapsi’, but never returned award, cash’

LUCKNOW: Sahitya Akademi has yet to receive the awards two litterateurs from Uttar Pradesh had announced their decision to return. Poet Munawwar Rana and writer Kashinath Singh have neither sent their awards nor the citation amount of Rs 1 lakh each back to Sahitya Akademi, confirmed its chief Vishwanath Prasad Tiwari talking to TOI.
Hindi writer Kashinath Singh had announced on October 17 his decision to return the award conferred on him by the akademi for his novel ‘Rehan Par Raghu’ in 2011.
On being contacted, however, Singh told TOI he had returned the amount around three weeks back and said though he had not returned the memento, he would send it by hand through someone soon.
A day after Singh's announcement, during a debate on a television channel, Urdu poet Munawwar Rana announced he would return the akademi award. Rana had even handed over a cheque to the channel, though bearer column in the cheque was left blank.
Talking to TOI, Rana confirmed he had left it blank saying it could be returned to the akademi or given away for any social cause.
After announcing the return of the award, Rana had also told media persons that he got a call from the Prime Minister Office saying that Narendra Modi wanted to meet him.
When asked about progress if any on that front, Rana said, he had told the PMO official it would not be possible for him to meet the PM one on one as several other writers had returned the award in protest. “It would have been better if all were invited,” Rana had told the official. Since then, there has been no communication from the PMO, Rana told TOI.