Indian playwright and theater artiste Maya Krishna Rao rests at her residence in New Delhi, India, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2015. As of Wednesday, 41 novelists, essayists, playwrights and poets writing in English as well as regional languages, have returned the awards they received from India's prestigious literary academy in protest, saying they cannot remain silent any longer about numerous incidents of communal violence or attacks on intellectuals across the country over the past year. "It's become a question of an individual's right to speak, to think, to write, to eat, to dress, to debate," said Rao, who returned her award to the academy this week. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das), APTOPIX