Opinion

Several great names from the North East return their awards for Gorkhaland

July 16, 2017

Several musicians from North East India have taken the “Award Wapsi” route in order to express their dissent against the actions of the Mamata Banerjee led Government in Bengal. With this incident, the hypocrisy of the Indian media has come out in the open. The media houses which were covering other Award Wapsi incident in their prime time for weeks, seems to completely blacking out this Award Wapsi incident.

Last Thursday marked the 203rd birth anniversary one of the most famous poet from the Hills – Shri Bhanu Bhakta Acharya. On this occasion, music great Shri Krishna Singh Moktan, who was awarded the Bhanu Puraskar and Banga Ratna Puraskar in 2004 and 2014 respectively returned them back to the State Government as a mark of protest.

As he spoke in the function, he made it quite clear that the Bengal government was misutilizing their power. “I condemn the police atrocities in the Hills in which seven people died. I support their cause and in protest, I decided to return the awards given to me by the state government,” he said as he spoke in a public event in Darjeeling where he returned his award.

Joining him was famous Nepali music composer Karma Yonzon. He too returned his award in the same function. Yonzon was awarded the Sangeet Samman Puraskar by Mamata Banerjee in 2016. Speaking in the event, Yonzon said, “I have decided to return my award in support of Gorkhaland. I was given the award by Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata. Now if I receive any awards, it will be from Gorkhaland whenever it is formed”.

Also joining them were two academicians, who have contributed their life for the development of India’s education sector. Nauratna Pradhan and Prabhat Pradhan who were conferred the Siksha Ratna Puraskar by the State Government in 2015 also returned the awards.

“We are being labelled terrorists by the Bengal government when our community has sacrificed their lives for the nation. Police are killing innocent people who are demonstrating for a justified demand. Under such circumstances, we feel we should not accept anything given by the state government,” they said.

We would like to place one simple question before the media. While you were bringing up several unheard of names for returning their awards during the “intolerance” issue, why are you keeping silence during this issue? In fact, it is to be noted that the food supplies in Darjeeling have been cut off, the police are beating up the locals, but a major faction of the media is not even bothering to cover this, except a few channels who are throwing some light on the issue.