A poet in Tamil Nadu has declined to accept an award recognising women achievers because the main sponsor of the event was the Adani group.

Sukirtharani told The Telegraph that associating herself with the programme would have been “antithetical to my principles, my body of writings and my philosophy for which I have stood so far”.

Also an activist and teacher of Tamil at a government school in Ranipet district, Sukirtharani had been chosen for the Devi Awards by the organiser, The New Indian Express (TNIE) newspaper group. The event was held at a Chennai hotel on Wednesday and the awards were handed over by former top cop and Puducherry lieutenant governor Kiran Bedi.

This year’s edition of the Devi Awards was sponsored by the Adani group, the Vellore Institute of Technology and apparel brand Ahujasons, a report in The New Indian Express said on the event.

Sukirtharani’s decision to decline the award was reported by Justice News, an initiative of Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre (PMARC), which seeks to bridge the divide between Dalit groups and mainstream media as well as civil society.

“I was among the 12 women personalities chosen for the Devi Awards-2023, organised by the TNIE, from across the country for their distinguished contribution in their respective fields of work,” Sukirtharani said.

“The selection was done by a team of experts. I respect their judgement. I wrote to them in an email thanking them for selecting me, but said I would not be able to accept the award as the main sponsor of the event was the Adani group,”Sukirtharani told this reporter over phone from her village near Ranipet.

Sukirtharani had been chosen for her contribution to Dalit literature. “I had initially agreed to accept the award, but it was only on February 3that I came to know that the main sponsor of the event was the Adani group,” she said.

Sukirtharani added: “Asa writer, I found it unacceptable to be associated with a function whose main sponsor was the Adani group as it is antithetical to my principles, my body of writings and my philosophy for which I have stood so far.”

Known for her bold and blunt style of writing, Sukirtharani, who was born in 1973 in a poor Dalit family and whose father worked as a daily wage-earner in a factory, drew attention to how the allegations of fraud in the Hindenburg Research report against the Adani group had disturbed her.

Besides, “the manner in which the group has been involved in developing the Kattupalli port (north of Chennai), taking over farmers’ lands and displacing rural labour, I do not agree with all these”, Sukirtharani said, adding that these were the reasons why “I declined the award”.

Sukirtharani has six collections of Tamil poetry and has received several awards like the Pudhumaipithan Memorial Award, the Women Achievers Award, the Avvai Award and the Vibrant Voice of Subalterns Award. Several of her poems feature in college curricula in Tamil Nadu and have been translated into English, Hindi, Malayalam, Kannada and German.

In an interview to the Indian Cultural Forum in September 2021, Sukirtharani had spoken about her activism. “The moment I set foot outside my house, caste chases me like a dog. Though official records say India has over six lakh villages, there are actually 12 lakh villages in all, because of the caste divide in each of them. The village I come from is also divided into two — the village proper and the Dalit area.... My social activism is motivated by the desire to unite these two divided sections.”

In August 2021, Delhi University’s Academic Council had unilaterally removed the writings of Sukirtharani and Bama alias Faustina Soosairaj from the English honours syllabus. DMK president and Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin had condemned the move and said the removal of the writings was “blatantly partisan and completely unacceptable”.