Jaipur: The Salman Rushdie row refused to blow over today with the controversial author slamming Rajasthan police for “inventing” a threat to his life to keep him away from the Jaipur Literature Festival.
The state government dismissed the charge saying Intelligence Bureau had given the inputs and it was not concocted. A day after Mumbai police refuted reports that it had passed on information about “paid assassins” being on their way to eliminate Rushdie, 64-year-old Rushdie took to microblogging site Twitter to vent his anger.
“Rajasthan police invented plot to keep away Rushdie’ I’ve investigated, & believe that I was indeed lied to. I am outraged and very angry,” he tweeted. Rushdie said he does not know if the false intelligence information was given by Rajasthan police under instructions from someone. “Don’t know who gave orders. And yes I guess the same police who want to arrest (authors) Hari, Amitava, Jeet and Ruchir. Disgusting,” he said responding to a comment on whether it is the same police who now want to arrest writers for reading passages of his banned work ‘The Satanic Verses’ at the festival.
Rejecting Rushdie’s charge, a senior Rajasthan government official said, “It was the input of IB on the basis of which the organisers advised Rushdie not to attend the Jaipur Literary festival. “It was brought to our knowledge today that Rushdie through twitter had said that the Rajasthan police tried to keep him away from the festival. It is absolutely wrong,” the official said. “It is our duty that if we receive advisory on any threat perception against anyone, we provide full security to him,” Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said.
Rushdie also posted a link to a news report that said local intelligence officials in Rajasthan had “invented” information about the assassination plot against him to keep him away from the literary event. His accompanying tweet read, “Here’s the story. Astonishing.” The author had dropped plans to attend the literature meet saying he was informed by intelligence sources in Maharastra and Rajasthan about threats to his life. Rushdie had expressed doubts about the accuracy of the intelligence but said in a statement that it would be irresponsible on his part to still attend the festival and put the lives of other authors and participants in danger.
The Rushdie controversy continued to cast its shadow on the third day of the festival being attended by over 250 authors. A police complaint was filed against the four authors who read out portions from ‘Satanic Verses’, a controversial 1988 novel by Rushdie that is banned in India due to its alleged blasphemous content. The four authors, Hari Kunzru, Amitava Kumar, Jeet Thayil and Rushir Joshi, who struck a defiant note by reading from the book on Friday, have opted out of the five-day meet. The festival organisers, who had issued a strong statement distancing themselves from the actions of the four authors, dismissed reports which said the writers have been forced to leave.
Meanwhile, in what could further stoke the Salman Rushdie controversy, a section of authors at the Jaipur Literature Festival launched a campaign demanding immediate lifting of the 23-year-old ban on the controversial writer’s book “The Satanic Verses”. “We strongly urge the government to reconsider the ban on The Satanic Verses,” read a petition presented by the authors led by Nilanjana Roy to Festival’s co-director William Dalrymple. The book by the India-born author was banned in the country in 1988 for allegedly having blasphemous content hurting the sentiments of Muslims. The petition claimed that ‘The Satanic Verses’ “has not incited violence anywhere. Others have used the novel’s existence to incite violence to suit their political ends. “Within India, in the 23 years since the ban, we have witnessed an erosion of respect for freedom of expression, as artists like M F Husain, Chandramuhun Srimantula, Jatin Das, and Balbir Krishan have been intimidated, and works of writers like Rohinton Mistry and A K Ramanujan have been withdrawn because of threats by groups claiming to be offended,” the petition said. India is one of the very few countries in the world where the ban stands, placing it alongside Egypt, Pakistan, Iran, Malaysia, Liberia and Papua New Guinea, among others, the petition said. (PTI)