MUMBAI: Pradeep Kokare, the winner of the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar 2025, was stopped on Friday by the police from entering the Sahitya Sammelan venue for a curious reason: the colour of his apparel. “I’ve been attending Marathi sahitya sammelans since 2019, but never have I been stopped because I was wearing black,” said the furious 29-year-old writer.
After a 15-minute argument with the police, Kokare, a senior editor with the famous publishing house Popular Prakashan, entered the venue anyway. “I wasn’t interested in the inauguration; I wanted to meet readers at the two stalls we had put up,” he said.
The police, said Kokare, gave no logical reason for objecting to his clothes. “When I told them that the state government had given me an award for my novel ‘Khol Khol Dushkal Dole’, they said they were just following orders from above,” he recounted. However, they refused to give him the phone numbers of those who had issued the orders so that he could talk to them.
“They finally told me there was a possibility that I would take off my black shirt and wave it in protest when the CM was speaking,” said Kokare. “Why didn’t the organisers write these instructions in the invitation? At any rate, protests are allowed in a democracy. If Fadnavis is so scared of protest, he should not step out.”
Kokare was stopped again when he entered the dining hall, but by then other attendees had joined in his protest, and he could go in.
In 2019, Nayantara Sahgal was invited as the chief guest but her invitation was revoked after MNS activists objected to the presence of an Indian English writer. This time, among the chief guests is famous Hindi writer and Sahitya Akademi winner Mridula Garg, who was arrested on obscenity charges for her 1979 novel ‘Chittacobra’. “I wonder if Mridula Garg knew about this illogical rule in a place where books are being honoured. Will they object to black hair next?” quipped Kokare.