By Harihar Swarup
More than 23 years back Khomeini issued a Fatwa calling the devout Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie, author of book—Satanic Verses. Almost in the same year Rajiv Gandhi’s government banned the controversial novel in India, considered blasphemous and anti Islam. Rushdie wrote an article in New York Times in October 1988 asking Rajiv Gandhi: “What sort of India do you wish to govern? Is it to be an open or a repressive society?
Much water has flown down the Ganga since then. Nothing happened to Rushdie; nobody could kill him because whom the Allah protects, nobody can kill. Meanwhile, Rushdie, an Indian national by birth, visited India many times and even attended Jaipur Literature Festival. Nobody did rake up the Fatwa or Satanic Verses.
Then suddenly Vice-Chancellor of Darul Uloom, Maulana Abul Qasim Nomani, saw the Rushdie threat and demanded that he should not be allowed to visit Jaipur to attend the Literature Festival. Evidently, it was a political move to woo Muslim votes, particularly in Uttar Pradesh. How can any government prevent any of its citizen from visiting his country and go wherever he likes?
While his book is banned why should Rushdie be prevented from coming to India since he has come to his country several time in recent years. No cogent explanation was offered. Equally shocking was government’s condition that it would allow the video conferencing only If he did not touch on any of controversial issue.
Salman has been visiting India without incident for many years, and spoke at JLF in 2007. Evidently, the sudden eruption of righteous indignation at his presence was not spontaneous. The manipulation of religious sentiments for political ends has a long history, and this was merely a particularly cynical example of a traditional election time activity. Now that the impending Uttar Pradesh elections as the backdrop, old mistakes are being repeated. Recall the winter of 1998; Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress was heading into the final stretch towards a general election and an attempt to reach out to vote-banks through anxieties along the religious lines had taken shape—on Ayodhya, on Shah Banoo judgement, on the ban on Rushdie’s book.“We wanted to demystify. It is, after all, just a book. Not bomb; not a gun or a knife”, says Kunjru. (IPA)