Now, Marathi writers appeal to voters to reject ‘politics of hate’

MUMBAI: After a group of actors and theatre personalities, 112

Marathi writers

have appealed to

voters

to reject what they call “the politics of hate”. Though, unlike the theatre personalities who have named the BJP in their online plea, the Marathi litterateurs have stopped short of mentioning any party, their statement is unambiguous about who they’re referring to.


While making it clear that voters have the right to choose “a candidate or party of their liking,” the writers, among them Sahitya Akademi award winner Jayant Pawar, Jnanpith Award winner Bhalchandra Nemade, veteran playwright Mahesh Elkunchwar and young playwright Manasvini Lata Ravindra, said it’s time Indians “vote out ideologies that create artificial divisions of ‘us’ and ‘them,’ implant hatred on the basis of religion or caste, encourage mob-lynching and shelter violent law-breakers”.

Pawar, who drafted the plea, said it was disturbing that people were being “labelled as traitors or pro-Pakistan” and freedom of expression was “being destroyed...to create a society th-at’s totally conditioned and incapable of independent thinki-ng”. They said they have protested whenever freedoms have been jeopardized, “irrespective of the party in power”. But “in the last five years, civil liberties and freedom of expression have constantly been in danger”, and “dissenting citizens have been…terrorized and assassinated”.

The BJP has criticised statements coming from groups in the arts and culture world as the complaints of “compulsive contrarians” who were “beneficiaries of Congress largesse” over many decades. It has also accused them of having pretensions to a higher cause while resorting to partisan politics.

Arun Khopkar, a Sahitya Akademi award-winner, told TOI that he was “not against this or that government”. “I believe in the Indian Constitution and will oppose anyone who performs any actions contrary to the spirit of the Constitution, whether it is Rahul Gandhi or Mamata Banerjee or Narendra Modi.” He added that when several people signed a petition, it did not mean that they agreed with “every word, line and punctuation mark” in it, but “with its underlying essence”.