BENGALURU — The 86th Akhila Bharata Kannada Sahitya Sammelana (All India Kannada Literature Conference), organised by the Kannada Sahitya Parishat, was inaugurated on Friday with much fanfare in Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai’s native city Haveri.
However, the the three-day literary festival has run into controversy on social media for sidelining Muslim writers and litterateurs.
The social media users alleged the ‘biased approach’ of the organiser in the selection of panels, achievers for felicitation. However, the Kannada Sahitya Parishat has gone ahead without making any changes.
In the poet convention also, not a single Muslim writer has got the opportunity and the Byari language spoken by Muslims of coastal Karnataka has not been considered. Even there was discussion on other dialects such as Konkani, Soliga, Tulu and Kodava.
Opposing this ‘biased approach’ towards Muslim writers, Kannada activists and like-minded litterateurs have organised a single-day parallel literary conference in Bengaluru on January 8. It has been decided to make well-known Kannada writer Bhanu Mushtaq as the President for the convention.
Dalit writer and retired bureaucrat, Moodnakoodu Chinnaswamy will inaugurate the conference. The programme will be held at the premises of the Alumni Association near K.R. Circle in Bengaluru.
This story was originally published in clarionindia.net . Read the full story here