Bengaluru: The Bengaluru Literature Festival is mired in controversy. The festival's co-founder and director Vikram Sampath on Sunday afternoon stepped down from his role.
This comes after the withdrawal of several participating writers from the festival over Sampath's views against returning awards to protest rising intolerance in the country.
Sampath had described spate of 'award wapsi' as selective outrage. This did not go down well with several noted Kannada writers like Dayanand TK, Arif Raja and OL Nagabhushana Swamy pulling out of the festival.
In a statement, Sampath said, "I have taken the painful decision of stepping away from all responsibility of organizing the Festival. Since the protesting writers had a problem with my presence and involvement with the festival rather than the festival's nature and character - I am sure they would not have agreed to participate in the first place if it was the latter, I am hopeful that withdrawing my involvement will now make them more comfortable with participating."
Comments
0 comment