Bengaluru: When Banu Mushtaq won the 2025 Booker Prize, there was a barrage of congratulatory messages from all sections of Kannadigas. She was referred to as the ‘Pride of Karnataka’, with no mention of her being Muslim.
But this was short-lived. Soon after Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah announced her to be the chief guest at this year’s Dasara event, her identity as a Muslim became the focal point of every reference made about the 77-year-old writer.
Among those who wished her when she won the Booker, but have since changed their position, is former BJP MP Prathap Simha. “Make Banu Mushtaq, who has received the Booker Prize, the president of the All India Kannada literature conference, but is it appropriate to invite her for the inauguration of Dasara, which is a symbol of (Hindu) religious belief and practice?” Simha said in a post.
This triggered a debate around Dasara, the alleged Hinduisation of Kannada, Muslim appeasement and various other issues that stirred the communal cauldron.
Having been a target of ‘maulvis’ her entire life over her writings which called for more freedom for Muslim women, Mushtaq is once again facing scrutiny. This time the criticism is coming from the political class, especially the BJP’s ecosystem.
Ironically, these are often the same leaders who have previously presented her as a progressive voice, aligning with the BJP’s narrative of empowering Muslim women, including their stance on banning Triple Talaq.
Her achievement as the first-ever author writing in Kannada to win the prestigious award now seems to matter little. After the first flurry of award ceremonies, felicitations by various groups, she has now retracted into a shell.
“It is only (a) short term break so that the communal agenda should not get an opportunity to rake up the issue once again,” she told ThePrint.
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‘Ploy to exclude me from Kannada’
Mushtaq grew up as the darling daughter to a doting father. She recalls in multiple interviews how her father encouraged her to study. A health inspector in the government, her father had to move around quite a bit, but her education was undisturbed at an Urdu school in Arsikere in Hassan district.
But when her father was transferred, she moved to a Christian-run Kannada school in Shivamogga. The sole condition was that she learn the Kannada alphabet within six months. The skepticism of the school was based on the belief that Muslims were reluctant to study Kannada as the latter was projected as a “Hindu language”, she recalls.
This statement has reappeared with Simha and several others reposting a 2023 video clip of hers at a literary event. In the event, she laments how Kannada was likened to Tayi (Goddess) Bhuvaneshwari and even the state flag was vermillion and turmeric, believed to exclude people from other communities.
“This ploy to exclude me (largely referring to minorities) started a long time ago,” she said while addressing the gathering at the Jana Sahithya Sammelana in 2023.
Muslims in Karnataka speak Kannada, but are more inclined to speaking Urdu or the Dakhini version of the language. However, Karnataka also has a rich culture of Muslims who have contributed immensely to Kannada literature.
This includes Sara Abubakar, Nissar Ahmed, Bolwar Mahamad Kunhi and Mushtaq herself among several others. Many of them used Kannada to articulate the intricacies, challenges and problems of the Muslim community.
Mushtaq was also part of a group called the ‘Bandaya Sahitya Sanghatane’ that loosely translates to ‘organisation of rebel littérateurs’ such as Baraguru Ramchandrappa, Ramzan Darga, and Kalegowda Nagawara among others.
Mushtaq cultivated a new style of writing that would use Kannada to express the tradition and hardships of Muslims. One such writing ‘Karinagagalu’ (Black Cobras), was adapted into the acclaimed 2004 Kannada feature film ‘Hasina’, directed by Girish Kasaravalli. Kannada actress Tara (now a BJP leader), went on to win a national film award for her portrayal of the protagonist.
‘Trolled for my views’
Mushtaq has often equated the caste system of Hindus that excluded Dalits to that of Muslim women, who were not allowed access to any entertainment or, for that matter, even to pray at mosques.
It was in the early 1980s that she first faced the wrath of the community when she backed the stand of another Muslim woman, Najma Bhangi. A high school teacher, Bhangi had refused to follow the rules laid down by maulvis, forbidding Muslim women from watching movies.
In an interview with New Age Islam in 2010, she recalled this incident and how she questioned the restrictions imposed by the maulvis. “If Muslim women are banned from watching movies, what source of entertainment would they consider permissible for them? Did they deserve any entertainment at all or not? Did Islam allow for it or not? If watching films was, as they claimed, bad for Muslim women, was it not equally bad for Muslim men? Why forbid only Muslim women from watching movies and exempt Muslim men? If movies promoted immorality, surely this applied as much to men as it did to women?” she was quoted as asking.
She also wrote to Lankesh Patrike—a progressive Kannada news weekly—lashing out at the maulvis, questioning their rules that were exclusively for women but conveniently ignored for men.
Though she had written many such letters to various publications, Lankesh Patrike decided to publish this article. Her father was pulled up by members of the community, but Mushtaq got her first job as the weekly’s reporter from Hassan.
According to her conversation with TheFrontline, in the late 90s and early 2000s, she was forced to remain indoors after Mushtaq advocated for the rights of Muslim women to pray at mosques.
“I was trolled very badly and abused. Verbally, they raped me like anything! I couldn’t tolerate the abuse. I lost confidence in myself,” Mushtaq recalls the time in her interview with TheFrontline.
Almost two decades later, Mushtaq finds herself in a similar place.
‘Govt did not apply its mind on Dasara chief guest’
Mushtaq has caught up in the political crossfire after she was named as the chief guest for this year’s Dasara. Though the author has not really hit out at people questioning Siddaramaiah’s choice, it’s the statements made by political leaders that have fuelled the fire around Dasara—an annual 10-day event celebrated with great gusto and fervour in Karnataka for at least the last four centuries.
The Mysuru Dasara begins with offerings to lord Chamundeshwari. The nine nights are called Navratri and the last day is Vijayadashmi.
Karnataka Deputy CM D.K. Shivakumar’s statement that the Chamundeshwari temple in Mysuru “is not the exclusive property of the Hindus” and that Dasara “is not just a Hindu festival”, have since fuelled the already raging fire.
“I don’t think the government applied its mind and thought it through when it invited Banu Mushatq, nor did it anticipate such opposition,” Sugata Srinivasaraju, author and analyst, told ThePrint.
He added that a political party cannot take a “very strict constitutional position” on a religious or cultural event, and it has entangled the Congress in a bind.
“It (Banu Mushtaq controversy) was not in the minds of the people. If the BJP had not made this into a controversy, I don’t think the people of Mysuru would have said that (inviting) Banu Mushtaq was a bad idea,” he said, emphasising that the issue has gained political colour.
The controversy has added to the BJP’s narrative that the ruling Congress party is going after Hindu places of worship in its efforts to appease Muslims.
Already, the BJP has demanded the Siddaramaiah government appoint a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the Dharmasthala ‘mass-burial’ case.
Now the controversy around Dasara is another chapter in the ‘Muslim appeasement’ narrative. And Banu Mushtaq is right in the centre of it.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
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