Panaji: Goa Konkani Academy has rejected purchase and circulation of Sahitya Akademi Award winner Neelba Khandekar’s collection of poems citing objectionable content in it.
The writer has said that Executive Committee of the GKA has rejected the purchase and circulation of his book “The Words” which was earlier approved by the body in the year 2018. He said that the executive committee has ruled that the book has “objectionable” and “obscene” content.
The GKA’s Executive committee, the writer said, took objection to the two words in Konkani in one of the poem.
Khandekar said that GKA had approved the purchase of 90 copies of the books to be officially purchased and circulated, which was cancelled.
The purchase order was issued to the writer by GKA in January, 2019.
The writer has now filed series of applications under Right to Information Act in different government bodies to find out why those words were deemed objectionable.
Incidently, the writer said that those words appear in his work “Gangrape” which won him the coveted Sahitya Akademi Award in the year 2019.
None of the members from Executive committee were available for comments on the issue.
This is not for the first time that the state run body is in the news for objecting to the contents in the book.
In the year, 2017 had cancelled award declared to collection of poems ‘Sudirsukt’ written by late Vishnu Surya Wagh.
The book was objected to due to the alleged derogatory references made to a particular community by the writer, who passed away last year.
