Actor Parvathy slams the jury of the ONV literary award for honouring Tamil lyricist Vairamuthu, who has been accused of sexual harassment. On Thursday, the Uyare actor took to social media to condemn the decision of conferring the award, constituted in the memory of legendary poet ONV Kurup, to the latter while turning blind to the MeToo accusations.
Parvathy stated that the decision to honour Vairamuthu is disrespectful towards the legendary poet ONV Kurup. “ONV Sir is our pride. His contribution as a poet and lyricist is incomparable. How it has nourished our culture,” she wrote in a tweet.
The actor asserted that it is “immense disrespect” to give such an honour in the name of ONV to the “accused of sexual assault crimes”.
In the wake of the MeToo movement in India, lyricist Vairamuthu faced a slew of allegations of sexually harassing multiple women. The actor went on to shed light on the details of the accusations and wrote in an Instagram post, “17 women have come out with their stories. We don’t know how many more have been wronged. There seems to be enough whataboutery to continue wronging those who are wronged".
“If you come at me with the art vs artist debate, let me tell you that for me the humanity of the person creating the art is the only thing I’d choose to look at,” she added.
In 2018, singer and dubbing artist Chinmayi Sripaada publicly alleged that Vairamuthu made her feel uncomfortable on two occasions. Also, she was told that “her career will be over” in case she refuses to “cooperate”.
The literary award jury is headed by filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan and the award honours poets from Malayalam and other Indian languages. In 2016, the ONV Cultural Academy started the award in memory of the late ONV Kurup.
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