Now, Arundhati Roy returns her national award

November 05, 2015 10:33

Returning her National Award for Best Screenplay, which she won in 1989, Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy said that she was "so proud" to join the writers, filmmakers and academics, who have returned their awards to protest against attacks on minorities, murder of rationalists, threats to free speech, enforcement of beef bans, and the vicious remarks bandied about by leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.Roy, the author of The God of Small Things, said that this "political movement" by artists and intellectuals "is unprecedented, and does not have a historical parallel." Her National Award was for the film - In Which Annie Gives it Those Ones.

"I am very pleased to have found (from somewhere way back in my past) a National Award that I can return, because it allows me to be a part of a political movement initiated by writers, filmmakers and academics in this country who have risen up against a kind of ideological viciousness and an assault on our collective IQ that will tear us apart and bury us very deep if we do not stand up to it now," Roy said

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