Rushdie visit cancellation, literary world outraged, Deoband happy
The cancellation of Salman Rushdie's India visit over security concerns fuelled an outrage today in the literary community which said his absence is 'a stain' on the country's international reputation while a leading Islamic seminary dubbed it a 'victory of democracy'.
Ruling out any Government role behind Rushdie calling off his visit to the Jaipur Literary festival amid protest threats, Congress said it was his "individual" decision as there was no restriction on his coming to attend the event that began today.
Authors Hari Kunzru and Amitava Kumar in their tweets said that Rushdie's absence from the festival is "a stain on India's international reputation". They used their session at the festival to read from Rushdie’s banned "Satanic Verses" as a mark of their protest. The two referred to the book during their own readings and discussions and actually went on to read out from it.
The organizers later asked Kumar not to go ahead with his reading. But, Kumar ignored the call and went ahead with a passage from Rushdie’s book. In fact just before his reading Kunzru tweeted: "About to defy bigots and shoe throwers, reading @SalmanRushdie Satanic Verses on stage with @amitavakumar at #jaipur #jlf (sic)."
They also read out Rushdie’s tweet to the audience in which he had thanked the two for reading from his controversial book, to loud applause. A perturbed Rushdie later tweeted: "@amitavakumar says organizers asked him not to continue reading from Satanic Verses." Willie, Sanjoy: why did this happen?". He was referring to William Dalrymple and Sanjoy K Roy, the festival organizers.
Roy said it was sad that Rushdie had to cancel his trip, and termed the development very unfortunate. Reacting to Rushdie's decision, Deoband Vice-Chancellor Maulana Abul Qasim Nomani told reporters in Muzaffarnagar, "It is a victory of democracy because some Muslim organisations, including Darul Uloom Deoband, had opposed the visit to India in a democratic way."
The Islamic seminary had on January 9 asked government to bar Rushdie from coming to India as he had allegedly hurt religious sentiments of Muslims.
