New Delhi, March 20 -- Close on the heels of a controversy about whether Indians read comes the news that this year's Jnanpith Award is being given to R. Vairamuthu, celebrated in Tamil Nadu for his film lyrics and far more widely known for the sexual harassment allegations made against him by 17 women than his literary merits.

Detractors have raised two kinds of objections to Vairamuthu's selection. The first is the question of the literary quality of his work. Writer B. Jeyamohan observed in Frontline magazine: "It is not because he is a bad poet but because he is not a poet at all. Vairamuthu is a person who writes contemporary news with rhetorical sentences that resemble cheap oratory."

It is not as if there are no other Tamil write...