Bulldozer demolitions: More than 100 writers slam JCB literature prize’s ‘hypocrisy’

Writers criticize JCB Prize for Literature for hypocrisy in supporting marginalized writers while complicit in human rights violations.

More than a hundred writers, translators and publishers have written an open letter accusing the 'JCB Prize for Literature' of hypocrisy, saying the British bulldozer manufacturer company, which funds it, played a "major role in the horrifying destruction of homes" across India and Palestine.

They said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has consistently used JCB bulldozers in a "systemic campaign" to demolish Muslim homes, shops and places of worship across various Indian States — "an ongoing project disturbingly named 'bulldozer justice'".

The letter was released two days before the winners of the 'JCB Prize for Literature' were announced on November 23.

In an open letter signed by celebrated poet and critic K. Satchidanandan, poet and publisher Asad Zaidi, poet Jacinta Kerketta, poet and novelist Meena Kandasamy, and poet and activist Cynthia Stephen, the writers said JCB (India) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the British construction equipment manufacturer JC Bamford Excavators Limited (JCB), which has been one of the most influential donors to the British Conservative party.

"The employment of JCB equipment within far-right Hindu supremacist projects in India comes as no surprise in this context," the open letter read.

JCB bulldozers are also responsible for home demolitions and settlement expansion in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, owing to a contract between JCB's agent and the Israeli Ministry of Defence, thus playing a "key role in Israel's continued attempts at ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and demolitions in Kashmir".

“The JCB has created a literature prize “aimed at marginalised and diverse writers”, while simultaneously “remaining complicit in destroying the lives and livelihoods of so many as a form of ‘punishment’,” it said.