Bangla Academy Literary Award: New list excluding 3 names

The Bangla Academy has excluded names of three people from the published list of recipients of Bangla Academy Literary Award this year. They are Mohammad Hannan, Faruque Nawaz and Selim Morshed.

Bangla Academy confirmed this in a Facebook post on Wednesday.

The Bangla Academy Literary Award-2024 was announced on 23 January.  However, it was later cancelled on 25 January.

The Academy said they received some complaints regarding some of the names in the list. Following that, they cancelled the previously published list.

The Academy announced it would republish the list after re-evaluating it within three working days.

Tuesday was the last day of the three working days. However, the academy did not publish the new list. Later, on Wednesday, the academy announced the exclusion of Mohammad Hannan, Faruque Nawaz and Selim Morshed.

Mohammad Hannan was nominated in the liberation war category and Faruque Nawaz was nominated for children’s literature.

Meanwhile, writer Selim Morshed announced rejecting the award following the announcement of cancelling the previous list on 27 January.

He was nominated for the award under the fiction category. The list of awardees whose names were going to be omitted was finalised in a meeting on Wednesday.

As per that, the recipients of the Bangla Academy Literary Award are – Masud Khan (poetry), Shubhasis Sinha (drama), Salimullah Khan (prose), GH Habib (translation) Muhammad Shahjahan Mia (research), Rezaur Rahman (science) and Syed Zamil Ahmed (folklore).

The announcement of the Bangla Academy Literary Award stirred controversy. Later on 25 January, cultural adviser Mostofa Sarwar Farooki in a Facebook post said there had been discussions on the need of reviewing the list of awardees as there have been complaints regarding some of the declared recipients.

Besides, a decision has been taken to investigate the complaints. Under these circumstances the list of Bangla Academy Literary Awards has been cancelled.

Farooki wrote, “I want to add that the strange policy which creates scopes for coterie awards should be reviewed as soon as possible.”

Addressing a press conference organised by the cultural affairs ministry on 26 January, Bangla Academy director general Mohammad Azam said the award would be cancelled if there was evidence of direct involvement in genocide and anti-people politics in respect of anyone named in the list.

Morshed Shafiul Hasan was a member of the Bangla Academy committee on award related affairs.  He announced his withdrawal from the committee on Wednesday.

Speaking to Prothom Alo, he said, “The process of reviewing the list after cancelling the previous list is quite embarrassing for the people involved in the process. It’s not a resignation. I will not take part in the review process.”

Morshed Shafiul Hasan is a fellow at Bangla Academy. He also posted on Facebook regarding his withdrawal from the award related duties.

On 29 January, poet Sajjad Sharif resigned from the executive committee of Bangla Academy. He informed the Academy DG about his resignation through a letter.

Sajjad Sharif told this correspondent, “It is not ethically possible for me to continue here in the context of the disrespect that has taken place regarding the Bangla Academy as an institution and the Bangla Academy posts.”