“Insulted” author returns award as Mamata Banerjee gets literary honour

Ratna Rashid Banerjee, an author and folk culture researcher has returned her award given by the Paschimbanga Bangla Akademi to protest its decision to confer a special award on West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee.

Ratna Rashid Banerjee returned her “Annada Shankar Smarak Samman” with which she was honoured in 2019. In a letter to Akademi chairperson Bratya Basu – also the state’s education minister – the author said that it had become a “crown of thorns” for her due to the body’s decision to confer the CM with the special award on the birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore. She was quoted saying that she felt “insulted by the move” and that it will “set a bad precedent”.

The award, introduced this year, was announced for the CM for her book “Kabita Bitan”, a collection of over 900 poems.