The new leadership of the Karnataka Nataka Academy, nominated by the incumbent BJP government, has cancelled the list of awardees announced by the academy last year and come up with a new one on Saturday.
The Lifetime Achievement Award was announced to senior actor and Congress politician Umashree in July 2019. This had come under criticism as the previous president of the academy was appointed by Ms. Umashree during the Congress regime when she was Minister for Kannada and Culture.
Award for G.V. Sharada
The academy on Saturday announced the award to another senior actor, G.V. Sharada. It also announced annual theatre awards to 25 artists, scrapping the previous list.
This has drawn the ire of many in theatre circles. Senior theatre personality K. Marulasiddappa said this was an “undemocratic move” by the new leadership of the academy. A former chairperson of the Kuvempu Bhasha Bharati himself, he said all academies in the State followed a precedence of honouring the work of the previous leadership. “This move by the academy has put deserving artists, both those whose names were announced by the previous leadership and those announced now, in an embarrassing spot as awards to them have now been tarnished by politics,” he said.
But Bhimsen, the current president of the academy, has defended the move. “The previous committee announced the awards on July 29, 2019, the last day of their tenure. This was in violation of the set norms,” he said. “It was a unanimous decision in the committee to ensure a wrong precedent was not set and it was corrected. So we have taken this decision,” he said.
