Bollywood figures, writer Roy join protest over intolerance

Booker Prize-winning novelist Arundhati Roy and two dozen Bollywood award winners added their voices to the artists, scientists and historians who say they are alarmed by a climate of religious intolerance and violence in India.

Filmmaker Sanjay Kak, who was among Indian film industry figures returning National Film Awards in Mumbai on Thursday, said that those protesting "have deployed their visibility - and credibility - to articulate the growing anxiety of a vast number of Indians, those who may remain less visible but are no less perturbed at what is going on around them."

Indian intellectuals alarmed by rising intolerance attacks

First writers then artists, followed by filmmakers, historians and scientists. The chorus of Indian intellectuals protesting religious bigotry and communal violence grows louder by the week with a single message for Prime Minister Narendra Modi: protect India's tradition of secularism and diversity.

Those protesting are angry and worried by a spate of deadly attacks against atheist thinkers and minorities, and by Modi's relative silence through it all. That silence appears to have encouraged some of his party colleagues to make comments asserting Hindu pride and superiority.

41 writers return Indian award, cite climate of intolerance

Many in India's literary community are disgusted. Dozens of writers say every day brings more evidence of intolerance and bigotry going mainstream — a man lynched allegedly for eating beef, an atheist critic of Hindu idol worship gunned down — all met by a deafening silence from the government.

As of Wednesday, 41 novelists, essayists, playwrights and poets had returned the awards they received from India's prestigious literary academy to protest what they call a growing climate of intolerance under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government.

41 writers return Indian award, cite climate of intolerance

Dozens of writers have returned India's highest literary honor to protest what they call a growing climate of intolerance in the country since Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government took office.

As of Wednesday, 41 novelists, essayists, playwrights and poets had returned the awards they received from India's prestigious literary academy, saying they cannot remain silent about numerous incidents of communal violence or attacks on intellectuals across the country over the past year.