Intelligentsia decry heckling of Srijato

KOLKATA: The intellectuals in Kolkata have condemned the vandalism at poet

Srijato

’s programme venue at Assam’s Silchar. A group of Hindutva activists barged into the hotel which was hosting the programme, heckled the poet over a poem he had written some time ago, vandalised the venue and stopped the programme midway.


“There were campaigns on social media against my presence since morning. Later, during the programme, some men barged into the hotel and started questioning me about a poem that had been published sometime back. The organisers tried to pacify them, but they did not stop. I was virtually confined into the banquet room of the hotel for three and a half hours,” said Srijato.

Poet Sankha Ghosh found it to be “audacious unethical behaviour”.

Author Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay said, “Such incidents take us back to the dark ages. “How can a poet be attacked for creative writing? That is his birth right, isn’t it? Creative people are being attacked and they’ve no choice but to bear the brunt of such motivated attacks.”

Actor Bibhas Chakraborty felt that the terror is coming closer home now and it is time to react. “Intolerance is raising its ugly head all around us and it is definitely not something that we were used to all these years. I have time and again protested in my own way, by making public statements ever since the Kalburgi attack and murder. I will do so again,” he said.

Painter

Jogen Chowdhury

said: “It’s shameful! How can anyone attack a creative person? You can always protest in a sane and civil manner, in a democratic fashion and not by attacking anyone.”

Srijato himself “felt unsafe in the states where free speech has come under attack”.

The poet, who cut short his Assam trip and came back to Kolkata on Sunday, said it had become difficult for the artists to freely express their opinions in some parts of the country.

On Sunday, the poet said this was not the first time that he had been facing protests, but thought that with passage of time, the issue had died a natural death. “But I found that it was kept alive by some groups with vested interests. The artists have a freedom of expression in

West Bengal

, but we travel across the country. Such a situation, where creative art is under attack, should change,” Srijato said.