Girish Karnad says VS Naipaul is anti-Muslim

Veteran actor Girish Karnad attacked Nobel laureate VS Naipaul atTata Literature Live!festival for being anti-Muslim, tone deaf and an unreliable writer of non-fiction. Karnad alleged that Naipaul “has no idea of how Muslims contributed to Indian history” and also questioned the authenticity of Naipaul’s non-fiction writing, saying “He really doesn’t pay much attention to the details of the texts he studies.”

Karnad also questioned the festival’s decision to award the Landmark Literature Live! Lifetime Achievement Award to the internationally-acclaimed author, Naipaul, earlier this week. “My question is to organisers who keep giving him lifetime awards as though what he has to say about a large section of the Indian population, about a whole rich period of Indian history which was our glory, doesn’t matter,” Karnad added. Not only this, when festival director Anil Dharker told Karnad it wasn’t polite of him to use such a platform for criticizing Naipaul, Karnad replied, “I don’t have to be polite. I’m following in the footsteps of Naipaul.”