CM, CPM congratulates Sahitya Akademi winner AR Venkatachalapathy

CHENNAI: Chief Minister MK Stalin on Wednesday congratulated historian and writer AR Venkatachalapathy for winning the Sahitya Akademi Award for his book Tirunelveli Ezhuchiyum V.O.C.yum 1908.

In a post on his X handle, Stalin said the award had come at a time when Venkatachalapathy had researched VO Chidambaram Pillai (VOC) for 40 years and brought out his book titled Swadeshi Steam.

"My congratulations to historian AR Venkatachalapathy, who corrected what the British rulers of the day called a rebellion and recorded it as our 'Uprising'!" the Chief Minister wrote.

Meanwhile, CPM state secretary K Balakrishnan said that Venkatachalapathy has authored many books and essays following extensive historical research on VOC who is one the pioneers of the Swadeshi movement and a warrior of the anti-imperialist movement of India. "This award has added value to his 40 years of academic research," the leader said.

Besides Venkatachalapathi, Hindi poet Gagan Gill and English writer Easterine Kire are among the 21 recipients of the annual Sahitya Akademi Awards. Other winners include Sohan Kaul for her Kashmiri novel Psychiatric Ward and Paul Kaur for her Punjabi poetry book Sun Gunvanta Sun Budhivanta: Itihaasnama Punjab. Poets like K Jayakumar (Malayalam), Haobam Satyabati Devi (Manipuri), Dileep Jhaveri (Gujarati), Sameer Tanti (Assamese), Mukut Maniraj (Rajasthani), and Dipak Kumar Sharma (Sanskrit) were also honoured. KV Narayana, Sudhir Rasal and Penugonda Lakshminarayana will be awarded for their literary criticism in Kannada, Marathi and Telugu, respectively.

(With PTI inputs)