On the eve of Sonia Gandhi’s dinner for all UPA allies, there is a new faultline in Congress-Left solidarity. The Left is fuming because the Congress, especially Union Culture Minister Jaipal Reddy, is ignoring the great Hindi writer Munshi Premchand in his 125 birth anniversary year.In a letter sent to Reddy, Left intellectuals even wondered if he was still ‘‘working under a hangover of the previous regime.’’ The reason for the outburst: the culture ministry had not got back to them after saying that it would give a measly Rs 40,000 to help remember the great fiction writer. On behalf of the CPM, veteran MP Hannan Mollah is writing a letter to Reddy. He is, in fact, taking over the campaign from Left’s culture strongmen Rajen Prasad and M.K. Raina of Sahmat who have been targetting the culture minister and the HRD Ministry officials on the issue. Sahmat has been advising A.K. Gopalan Bhavan more and more on cultural and education policies and Harkishen Singh Surjeet’s recent writings on cultural and education personalities was largely based on advice from the Sahmat thinktank. The Left has been pointing out for some time that there is need to rehabilitate some prominent literary figures whom the BJP had consigned to oblivion. And in the 125th birth anniversary year of Premchand, they planned several functions and sought the government’s help. A letter was sent both to the HRD Ministry and the Union Ministry of Culture. In the first letter despatched to both ministries on October 4, the Left intellectuals described Premchand as a writer ‘‘whose deep understanding and sensitive articulation of contemporary social life is unparalleled.’’ The HRD Ministry took a long time to respond. It said that it did not have the jurisdiction to support Premchand’s birth anniversary. And the Left intellectuals wrote back to Yogeshwar Lal, an under secretary in the MHRD cell, ‘‘It is rather surprising that you took two months to provide us this advice. We are sorry that you have not been able to see that the proposal will ‘promote culture and values’.’’ The letter to Reddy is nastier. It accuses Reddy of suffering from a ‘‘hangover’’ of the previous regime. This is not the first time that the Union Culture Minister is finding himself at the receiving end of the Left’s tirade. Earlier, Surjeet in a signed article had complained that the ministry of culture was not removing most of the saffron appointees who were continuing to head institutions.
