The three-day Kannada Sahitya Sammelana began at Haveri on Friday and ended on a bitter note for all the wrong reasons. The 86th edition of the literary meet was presided over by poet Dr. Doddarange Gowda. The event turned out unexpectedly on a bitter note. Veteran actress Sudha Narasimharaju was not allowed to enter the premises of Kannada Sahitya Sammelana by the police authorities.
Reportedly, Sudha found herself trying her level best to make the police authorities understand that she was invited by the organizers to give a speech. All these efforts fell on deaf ears, as the authorities didn’t allow her to enter for nearly two hours. The level of unprofessionalism depicted by the organizers was so bad that no one was there to help Sudha to allow in, adds the report.
On the other side, there were calls for boycotts of the event as some sections of minority communities and women authors alleged that they had been ignored by the organizers. To make peace with the controversy, the organizers had an alternative literary meeting titled 'Paryaya Sahitya Sammelana pacifying the ignored women and minority community authors on January 6th.
Sunil Kumar, the Kannada and Culture Minister, expressed his displeasure seeing Paryaya Sahitya Sammelana being organized in Bengaluru as not a positive development. An organizing member of Kannada Sahitya Sammelana said there were six Muslim writers on the panel so all these allegations of discrimination were not justified.