Kaffiyeh Ban Issue: Indian-origin Author Lahiri Declines Noguchi Museum Award

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 Jhumpa Lahiri and Lee Ufan, a Korean-born minimalist painter, sculptor and poet, were to receive the Isamu Noguchi Award next month

NEW YORK – Pulitzer Prize-winning Indian-origin writer Jhumpa Lahiri on Wednesday declined to accept an award from the Noguchi Museum in Queens protesting its ban on political dress for its staff after it fired three employees for wearing kaffiyehs in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

The keffiyeh is a traditional headdress worn in the Middle East to symbolise Palestinian nationalism. Fashioned from a square scarf it is usually made of cotton.

“Jhumpa Lahiri has chosen to withdraw her acceptance of the 2024 Isamu Noguchi Award in response to our updated dress code policy,” the museum said in a statement on Wednesday.

“We respect her perspective and understand that this policy may or may not align with everyone’s views,” The New York Times cited the statement as saying of Lahiri.

“We remain committed to our core mission of advancing the understanding and appreciation of Isamu Noguchi’s art and legacy while upholding our values of inclusivity and openness.”

The New York-based museum, founded nearly 40 years ago by Noguchi, a Japanese American designer and sculptor, announced last month that employees could not wear clothing or accessories expressing “political messages, slogans or symbols” during their working hours.

The policy, which does not apply to visitors, was instituted after several staff members had, for months, often worn kaffiyehs for what one fired employee termed “cultural reasons”.

The museum, defending the prohibition earlier this month, said “such expressions can unintentionally alienate segments of our diverse visitorship”. A significant majority of staffers signed a petition opposing the rule.

Lahiri and Lee Ufan, a Korean-born minimalist painter, sculptor and poet, were to receive the Isamu Noguchi Award at the museum next month.

Lahiri, who was born in London to an Indian immigrant couple, won the 2000 Pulitzer for fiction for her debut, the story collection “Interpreter of Maladies”, and has since published several books of fiction and nonfiction in both English and Italian.

She is also the director of the creative writing programme at Barnard College.

Questions of how to express solidarity with Israelis or Palestinians have divided cultural institutions since the Israeli genocidal campaign in Gaza.

Israel’s unending war on Palestinians for the past year has killed more than 41,000 civilians and displaced at least 1.9 million Palestinians internally.

Lahiri was one of the thousands of scholars who signed a letter to university presidents in May expressing solidarity with campus protests against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, calling it “unspeakable destruction”. – With inputs from PTI

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