‘Award a Crown of Thorns’: Bengali Writer Returns Award as Mamata Gets Honoured

West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee. Image used for representative purposes. 

(Photo: PTI)

Ratna Rashid Banerjee, a Bengali writer and folk culture researcher on Tuesday, 10 May, returned an award given to her by the Paschimbanga Bangla Academy to protest against the academy’s decision to confer a special award on West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for her contribution to literature.

The writer returned the ‘Annada Shankar Smarak Samman’ with which she was honoured by the Academy in 2019, news agency PTI reported.

In a letter to the Academy Chairman Bratya Basu, who is also the state education minister, the writer claimed that the award has become a “crown of thorns” for her in the wake of the academy’s decision to confer a new literary award to the CM on the birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore.

Banerjee said, “As a writer, I feel insulted by the move to give a literary award to the CM. It will set a bad precedent. The statement of the Academy praising the relentless literary pursuit of the honourable chief minister is a travesty of truth.”

The award, introduced this year, was announced for the chief minister’s book ‘Kabita Bitan’ a collection of over 900 poems, at the state government organised programme to celebrate the birth anniversary of Tagore on Monday, 9 May.

Rashid Banerjee added, “We admire and respect the CM for her political battle, the massive mandate she got from people to rule the state for three terms. We had voted for her. But I cannot equate her contribution to politics with the claim that she worked for the cause of literature. I am not aware of,” PTI reported.

The CM’s book, ‘Kabita Bitan’ was released at the 2020 International Kolkata Book Fair.

(With inputs from PTI.)