Writers, translators slam JCB for ‘blatant hypocrisy’

Over a hundred writers, poets and publishers have come out with an open letter condemning JCB, the British bulldozer manufacturer and organiser of a literature prize, for allegedly “uprooting” the lives of poor and marginalised in India as well as Palestine.

Signed by the likes of poet-critic K Satchidanandan, poet-publisher Asad Zaidi, Adivasi poet Jacinta Kerketta, poet-novelist Meena Kandasamy and Dalit poet-activist Cynthia Stephen, the letter condemned the company, which organises the annual JCB Prize for Literature in India for its “blatant hypocrisy”. They said the company was awarding a literary prize celebrating the diversity of Indian writers, while “simultaneously remaining complicit in destroying the lives and livelihoods of so many as a form of punishment”.