New Delhi: After an inordinate delay, the Sangeet Natak Akademi (SNA) finally announced the names of the 42 winners for the 2017 SNA awards this week.Even as an “unofficial list” of the awardees was doing the rounds on social media for the last few days, creating confusion, many in the art fraternity expressed surprise on the official silence over the names even though the Akademi’s general council finalised the list on June 8 at a meeting in Imphal.This week, when the country’s highest arts body finally put out the names of the prestigious annual awards in a press note, as finalised by the general council of the Akademi in Imphal, all eyes were, however, on one name in the list that reportedly caused the delay in the official announcement – that of Mumbai-based theatre director Sunil Shanbag.Shanbag, who founded the theatre company Arpana in 1985, and has worked closely with veterans like Satyadev Dubey and Shyam Benegal besides being the co-author of the critically acclaimed TV series Bharat Ek Khoj, has been named the winner under the category of theatre direction. But not without an underhand attempt reportedly by political forces to compromise the autonomy of India’s national academy of music, dance and drama.As per a news report on June 23, the delay was caused by the intervention of some senior leaders of the ruling BJP government and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)’s cultural wing, Sanskar Bharti, which demanded that the SNA withdraw Shanbag’s name from the winners’ list. According to them, he was part of the ‘award wapsi’ campaign in 2015 which protested alleged intolerance during the Narendra Modi regime. As per a June 23 report in the Economic Times, “They (the leaders) said Shanbag had also publicly criticised the government’s hold over cultural institutions. Some people even complained that Shanbag was related to Maoist leaders Anuradha and Kobad Ghandy, ET has learnt.”On June 24, in response to the reports, former SNA chairman and veteran theatre and film person Girish Karnad wrote a letter to Shekhar Sen, chairman of SNA, urging him not to withdraw Shanbag’s name, citing the role the Akademi should play in the field of arts. Calling the demand of the RSS and the BJP “ludicrous”, Karnad wrote, “The responsibility of the Akademi is to recognise and honour artistic merit. The artist’s political beliefs are his right. Shanbag has been working for over forty years on the Indian stage and the quality of his work has been consistently innovative and outstanding. That’s all that should matter.”Karnad also pointed out that Shanbag “was groomed for the theatre by Satyadev Dubey, a self- declared member of the RSS, and yet that has not deflected Shanbag from his distinct ideals.”Though SNA comes under the Ministry of Culture and is fully funded by the government, it functions as an autonomous body which is run by a general council headed by a chairman, with five nominees of the central government and one representative from each of the state governments.Lauding Sen’s decision to stick to the general council’s decision to confer the award on Shanbag, Karnad recalled that during his tenure as SNA chairperson (1988-1993) “…Utpal Dutt’s play, Kallol, on the Naval Mutiny of 1946, was invited to Delhi to participate in the Nehru Shatabdi Natya Mahotsav of [1989] although it had dialogues which called Jawaharlal Nehru a ‘fascist stooge’.”Karnad wrote, “…Utpal Dutt’s play, Kallol, on the Naval Mutiny of 1946 was invited to Delhi to participate in the Nehru Shatabdi Natya Mahotsav of 1989 although it had dialogues which called Jawaharlal Nehru a ‘fascist stooge’.”Following is Girish Karnad’s letter to Sen:Dear Shri Shekhar Sen,The reported demand by certain ‘senior leaders of the RSS and the BJP ‘ that the Sangeet Natak Akademi award to Sunil Shanbag should be withdrawn because of his ideological beliefs can only be described as ludicrous. The responsibility of the Akademi is to recognize and honour artistic merit. The artist’s political beliefs are his right. Shanbag has been working for over forty years on the Indian stage and the quality of his work has been consistently innovative and outstanding. That’s all that should matter. The present Award has been long overdue. The debate whether an artist’s political views should matter when considering his artistic stature is one that the SNA has faced in the past. The great Bengali actor-producer Utpal Dutt, who was a member of the CPI(ML), turned down the SNA Award as he felt it was patronage offered by the capitalist establishment, but later he was gracious enough to accept the Fellowship – a higher honour – during my tenure. In fact Utpal Dutt’s play, Kallol, on the Naval Mutiny of 1946 was invited to Delhi to participate in the Nehru Shatabdi Natya Mahotsav of 1989 although it had dialogues which called Jawaharlal Nehru a ‘fascist stooge’. The ironic aspect of the present controversy is that Shanbag was groomed for the theatre by Satyadev Dubev, a self-declared member of the RSS, and yet that has not deflected Shanbag from his distinct ideals.Perhaps this is too subtle a phenomenon to be grasped by doctrinaire activists. But the Sangeet Natak Akademi should be congratulated on its decision.Warmest regards,Girish Karnad