It is return-your-awards season for authors...

A few #Indian authors have hit the headlines after thry returned their #SahityaAkademyAwards. It is a good way of registering their protest.
Even Ravindranath #Tagore had returned his Knighthood to the British India govt after the #Jalianwala massacre ( 1919).

As Tagore had his reason ( his love for the country and her people) for returning the Award of #Knighthood to the colonial masters,  the aforementioned authors also have their own reasons that include:
the killing of an alleged cattle thief #Akhlaq by a mob (Hindus); and, that of two rationalist secular writer-activists #Dabholkar (Maharashtra) and #Kalburgi
( Karnataka).
Apparently  the return-your-award campaign is well-intentioned.
But is it actually so?

Answers come from Economics and History.
Each of the Awards carry with it a definite sum of #money that should also be returned along with Interest, Citations etc so that the sincerity of the Award-returning author is backed by his/her decision to sacrifice the material benefits accrued to them.
May be they are in the process of returning the award-monies as well, as economics is the real measure of the intention of the said authors whose integrity shouldn't be doubted until proved otherwise.

Now over to the history.
During the last 35 years, India has had many riots, massacres, carnage, killings etc that appear to have bypassed the conscience  of these authors.
To name a few, incidents that defied our '#CivilizationalCoreValues' include:

1. #DelhiRiots (more than 3000 #Sikhs killed, 1984) by mobs led by Congress leaders with Police taking no action for three days, and about which the young PM #RajivGandhi had said referring to his mother #IndiraGandhi's killing by two of her Sikh bodyguards:
 The Earth Does Shake When A Huge Tree Falls;

2. #BhopalGasTragedy (more than 5000 killed-- mostly #Muslims-- in 1984 and many more died in later years) that was because of the negligence of the State and Central Govts (both Congress);

3. #Bhagalpur Riots (nearly 1000 killed--mostly Muslims-- in 1989, Congress govt at the Center and the State);
4. #EthnicCleansing of #KashmiriHindus (killings, rapes and a deadline to leave the valley led to the exodus of lakhs of them in 1990) under #Congress govt at the Center and Congress-NC govt in the State;

5. #MumbaiSerialBlasts and Riots ( nearly 300 killed in 1993, Congress govt both in the State and at the Center);

6. #GujaratRiots (nearly 700 killed-mostly Muslims in 2002, BJP-led NDA govt in the State and at the Center) triggered by #Godhara train massacre of 52 #Hindu karsevaks.

These riots, massacres, exodus, genocides etc claimed thousands of lives and caused incalculable damage to the affected people -Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs et al.
Yet this ultra-sensitive tribe of authors didn't deem it fit to return their awards.

What's is so special this year?

In 30 years after 1984, the first political party with an overwhelming majority at the Center;
The party in power is a non-Dynasty (non-Congress) party, i.e., BJP;
And, the PM #NarendraModi has avowed to give a Congress-free non-dynasty govt to the people in all the States.

But how does it matter to the authors?

Any govt at any level has to function as per the norms of the Constitution and the govt gives awards to authors in the capacity of it (the govt)  representing the will of the people.
Should one believe that returning the #Awards amounts to disrespecting the people's will?
Even if it means so logically, one is led to believe otherwise. How come these pro-people intelligent secular authors turn into anti-people beings just because there is a non-Congress and non-dynasty govt at the Center?

It is difficult to doubt the integrity and intentions of these award-returning authors though it is equally difficult to be convinced with what they have stated as the reason thereof.

May be they accepted the awards unwillingly under the #NehruGandhiDynasty -driven State-pressure and had been waiting all these years to return the same(awards) to the State that today is, apparently at least, less repressive under a non-dynasty party led NDA. No wonder, they chose to return the awards during the reign of a party that is not run by a dynasty and thus is more democratic and less repressive but nonetheless representative of a REPRESSIVE STATE.
( At the cost of repetition it needs to be put on record that the awards have been returned because they were given by  the governments too repressive to be said NO to by the authors!)
Should there be a public funded ceremony to return the awards if the number of those willing to return their awards along with the award-monies gets too large to hog the headlines?