More than 120 writers, translators and publishers have accused the JCB Prize for Literature of hypocrisy, claiming its sponsor, the British bulldozer manufacturer JCB, has facilitated “the horrifying destruction of homes” in India and Palestine.
The open letter, released ahead of the prize announcement on Saturday, points out that Bharatiya Janata Party-led governments in India have used JCB bulldozers in a “systemic campaign” to demolish Muslim homes, shops and places of worship.
“For years, Narendra Modi’s Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party government has consistently used JCB bulldozers in a systemic campaign to demolish Muslim homes, shops and places of worship across various Indian states – an ongoing project disturbingly named ‘bulldozer justice’,” the letter stated.
The practice has been reported in several Indian states under the BJP’s control. There are no provisions in Indian law that allow for demolishing property as a punitive measure.
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court held that state authorities cannot demolish the properties of citizens merely because they are accused or convicted of crimes.
The letters’ signatories, including poet and critic K Satchidanandan, publisher Asad Zaidi and novelist Meena Kandasamy and poet Jacinta Kerketta, also pointed to JCB’s role in demolitions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory through a contract with the Israeli Defence Ministry.
“According to its website, the JCB Prize for Literature ‘aims to celebrate Indian writing’ and has appointed a jury ‘from various areas of Indian social and intellectual life’,” the group said. “This apparent championing of diversity is deeply hypocritical from a company responsible for the uprooting of the lives of so many Indians from poorer and marginalised backgrounds – including Muslims, Dalits and others – not to mention its enforcement of occupation in Kashmir and Palestine.”
“Unsurprisingly, JCB exports its support for occupation and displacement to Kashmir, where its equipment is deployed to demolish Kashmiri homes,” they added.
“The JCB has created a literature prize aimed at marginalised and diverse writers, while simultaneously remaining complicit in destroying the lives and livelihoods of so many as a form of punishment,” the letter read.
Criticism was also directed at JCB’s political affiliations, with the writers noting it is a major donor to the British Conservative Party.
The signatories to the letter include authors from West Asia, Palestine and Ireland, such as Isabella Hammad, Ahdaf Soueif and Ronan Bennett.
Indian poet Cynthia Stephen was on Thursday quoted by PTI as saying: “How ironic that the term JCB is more popular in India as the machine that has aided the demolition of literally hundreds of thousands of houses of the common citizens of India in certain States of India. To see it associated with a very ‘prestigious’ literary prize for Indian literature is surreal.”
Stephen added: “Heavy earthmoving equipment can build infrastructure, but in recent years, it has destroyed the lives of the poor and marginalised. We condemn such hypocrisy.”
The news agency also quoted writer and journalist Zia Us Salam as saying that “JCB has become a symbol of State-sponsored hate and intimidation of minorities and marginalised groups in Modi’s India”.
“It is trying to gain legitimacy with the literature prize,” Salam claimed. “This has nothing to do with promotion of free speech, diversity and pluralism. As writers, it’s critical that we speak up against this flagrant violation of human rights.”
Out of 128 demolitions documented by Amnesty International across five states between April and June 2022, “at least 33 instances of the repeated use of JCB’s equipment were verified”, the open letter stated.
Also read: Bulldozer injustice: Domicide doesn’t just destroy homes – it turns homelands hostile