A.R. Venkatachalapathy

When a media mogul attempted to hide away the song of Tamil Nadu’s Mahakavi, it sparked a movement

The Non-Brahmin Manifesto attacked injustice; the Justice Party sought a remedy by the earliest adoption of reservation and secularisation by law.

Harsh critics may feel that being loud, argumentative and shrill is not the best route to literary acceptance. But the Jnanpith puts paid to that, and as the man says, it is 'not a recognition, but an endorsement'.