The BJP does not care who Ustad Alauddin Khan is. All that matters is that he is a Bangladeshi and a music academy in the country cannot bear his name.Not surprising though, considering the Sahitya Akademi chief was removed a few days ago for the sale of anti-RSS literature at a fair. While an inquiry is on into the publications of the Akademi and the Bharat Bhavan over the past 10 years, there’s a fresh row over the Ustad Alauddin Khan Academy.‘‘I am not bothered about what the so-called intellectuals say. They did not construct a Tansen Academy. They named an academy after a Bangladeshi gayak. Who did they want to please?’’ said Minister for Culture Anup Mishra, Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee’s nephew.The gayak in question is one of India’s great musicians but Mishra couldn’t care less. ‘‘Let the media find out for itself,’’ he said on being asked who the artiste was.Khan, the founder of the Maihar gharana, was the guru of Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan. He was known as a devotee of the Sharda Devi temple in Maihar in Madhya Pradesh. Khan, however, was born in Sibpur in Bangladesh, long before Partition. To the BJP though, he qualifies as Bangladeshi. By which standards, DPM L.K. Advani, born in Sindh, is a Pakistani.Mishra has nothing to say on the matter. Nor on why Sahitya Akademi head Purnachand Rath was removed from his post for ‘‘controversial’’ periodicals which were being sold at an Akademi stall at the Lokrang Utsav in Bhopal.‘‘A detailed inquiry is underway. Everything from the Bharat Bhavan to the Culture Ministry has been made into a joke,’’ Mishra said. An inquiry into publications printed and recognised by the Sahitya Akademi and the Bharat Bhavan over a period of time is now underway and action against more officials is expected.The ‘‘controversial literature’’ on sale that led to Rath’s suspension comprises two literary periodicals published from Delhi that carried articles critical of the RSS. The periodicals, Samayantar and Udbhavna, are not published by the Sahitya Akademi and were only among the periodicals on sale at the stall in Bhopal.The Udbhavna issue in question carries an article by Sudish Pachauri pointing to the gap between the words and deeds of the RSS while the Samayantar issue carries an article on ‘‘gai pe rajniti (politics of the cow)’’. ‘‘For the past 10 years, it has been propagated that we are spoiling the communal atmosphere in the state. Such propaganda ensured we got more than 170 seats in these elections.We are examining all the books published by the Sahitya Akademi and who gave permission for these? We will ban books that are spoiling the atmosphere of the state. Officials still indulging in such activities will be punished.’’
