I have discussed the issue of banned books before, and while it is a terribly subjective thing to ban a book, it is also, in this blogger’s opinion, mostly a misguided thing. One of the prime examples of an unnecessarily banned book is Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, a book banned in several countries for challenging core Islamic beliefs. This book is now back in the spotlight after four authors were asked to leave the Jaipur Literary Festival because they read extracts from The Satanic Verses. The organisers suggested that they leave because they faced arrest for reading from a banned book during a festival celebrating Indian and international literature.
I feel that a literary festival should be a celebration of literature beyond borders and comfort zones. The Satanic Verses deals with more than just the supposed verses in the Koran attributed to Muhammad’s short time being influenced by pagan influences. Because these verses stand contrary to the rest of the teachings, they have been labelled the Satanic verses to explain them away. The Satanic Verses deals with the scope of life and death, Bollywood films, utterly destructive love and romance (the mother pushing her children out of a building and following them), sin and lust and climbing Everest. It is a work broad in its material and eloquent in its execution and about so much more than just a few misguided verses.
When Rushdie challenged a set of ideals (and not even with particular vitriol, I feel), he was using his art to lay out a set of discussions. If we cannot even raise objections in fiction, how are we to do so elsewhere?
PEN, the international organisation working for the most important rights of writers, has this to say about the ongoing threats to Salman Rushdie’s life:
PEN International is appalled to learn that the author Salman Rushdie has once again been the subject of a death threat; we condemn this criminal attempt to silence an international exponent of free speech.
This accords with my feeling on the subject. As a writer, as a bookseller, and as a citizen, I find the destruction of free speech intolerable. By all means, let there be responses. But those responses should not involve death threats and exile, semi-legitimised by the state.
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