Over the past one month, disgruntled litterateurs, historians, scientists and filmmakers across the country have returned the prestigious awards to protest the rising intolerance and attacks on minorities and lower castes unleashed by Hindutva forces in India.
On Thursday, a group of 23 directors led by filmmaker Kundan Shah returned their prestigious awards at a press conference organised by the Film and Television Institute of India.
The first batch of filmmakers who returned the awards formed a list of 13 and included Dibakar Banerjee, Paresh Kamdar, Anand Patwardhan, Lipika Singh, Indraneel Lahiri, Nishtha Jain, Kirti Nakhwa, Harshavardhan Kulkarni, Rakesh Sharma and Hari Nair. Three FTII alumni - Vikrant Pawar, Rakesh Shukla and Prateek Vats - have also returned their awards.
Among the 23 film-makers who returned their awards on Thursday were Kundan Shah and Saeed Mirza.
[Also read: Complete list of writers who returned their awards]
Here is the partial list of filmmakers who have returned their National Awards so far.
| No | Filmmaker |
| 1 | Dibakar Banerjee |
| 2 | Anand Patwardhan |
| 3 | Hari Nair |
| 4 | Lipika Singh Darai |
| 5 | Indraneel Lahiri |
| 6 | Nishtha Jain |
| 7 | Kirti Nakhwa |
| 8 | Harshavardhan Kulkarni |
| 9 | Rakesh Sharma |
| 10 | Paresh Kamdar |
| 11 | Rakesh Shukla |
| 12 | Prateek Vats |
| 13 | Vikrant Pawar |
| 14 | Kundan Shah |
| 15 | Saeed Mirza |
