India and its artistic intolerance

“ The best way to avoid getting offended is to shut a book… The worst thing is that artists are soft targets… We don’t have armies protecting us.” – Salman Rushdie

In yet another occasion of artistic intolerance in India, organizers of the Jaipur Literature Festival were “persuaded” by the Rajasthan state government to call off Salman Rushdie’s visit to the event.

The author had been scheduled to speak on the opening day of the event, but all plans had abruptly changed when intelligence sources had received information about paid assassins en route to Jaipur to kill him. Rushdie withdrew from the festival after Muslim organizations threatened his life if he did indeed make an appearance.

In 1988, Salman Rushdie ignited a furor among Muslims world over for the “blasphemous” verses in his his book “The Satanic Verses.” Following this, the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomein, issued a fatwa calling for his death which was backed by the Iranian government till 1998.

It has been two decades since Rushdie had to go underground for the controversy his book created, but Muslims continue to harbor ill feelings towards him. This is made evident with them opposing his participation in the Jaipur Literature Festival.

Many deem it a disgrace that the Indian government failed to provide Rushdie with protection when rumor was first heard. This leads us to believe that there could be possible political motivations behind keeping him away from the festival.

Critics claim that in the wake of the upcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh next month, no political party has stepped forward to curb the Muslim opposition in the fear of losing out on their votes.

“That Rushdie might need protection in India reflects poorly - not on him, but on India," writes Soutik Biswas, Delhi correspondent for the BBC.

Extending an invitation to Rushdie, the artist activist group, Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust, believes that it was the state’s “cowardly unwillingness” to stand up against communal forces.

After the fatwa was issued against Rushdie, many Islamic authors had been targeted for their works: Farag Foda for speaking out against censorship in Egypt, Taslima Nasrin for her book Lajja, Naguib Mahfouz for the controversy surrounding his novel Children of Gebelawi, etc.

A similar such case of narrow-mindedness was also seen in India when the late artist M. F. Husain was literally driven out of India in 2006 by Hindu dogmatists. They sabotaged his artwork and also attacked his home in Mumbai for painting Hindu deities in the nude.

Such intolerance towards artistic expression raises several questions concerning literary freedom in India. Works of fiction too are not free from opposition.

With reports pouring in about officials in Rajasthan objecting to what was decided would be a video address by Rushdie, the nation’s image of a progressive democracy has once again been tainted.

It seems as though the more India progresses economically, the more intolerant it becomes towards art. The Jaipur Literature Festival is one that the country should be proud to host, but instead, as with everything else, it has been turned into a political soup.