by B. R. GOWANI
A group of Muslims protest against the announced visit of Indian born British author Salman Rushdie to the Jaipur Literary Festival. He was forced to cancel the visit. PHOTO/Altaf Hussain/Reuters/Latitude News
Iran’s religious leader late Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1989 death fatwa against author Salman Rushdie for his book, “The Satanic Verses,” was a political move to tighten his loosening grip on power. It was more than four months after the book’s publication that Khomeini (for many Shias he was the awaited Imam Mehdi) received a holy revelation that the book should be banned because it portrayed the Prophet, his wives, and the Koran in an unfavorable light.
Ayatollah ignored Rushdie’s apology: “Even if Salman Rushdie repents and becomes the most pious man of time it is incumbent on every Muslim to employ everything he’s got, his life and wealth, to send him to hell.”
In less than four months after the fatwa, Khomeini departed for Hell and Rushdie was to settle down in the Great Satan’s Paradise, and flourish physically and financially.
After the fatwa, Rushdie went into hiding, suffered a great deal, changed a lot, left the left, and became a celebrity figure. His life became almost normal and the fatwa was a thing of the past.
But never.
India was the first country to ban “The Satanic Verses” (it was a political move on part of the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to gain Muslim votes) and is the latest to put some life back in that dead and long forgotten fatwa by giving unnecessary importance to noises made by a tiny segment of the 180 million Muslim population. Ignoring the few unreasonable voices would have done no harm. Even Rushdie’s video speech was cut off. Interesting thing is that Rushdie had been to India several times after he came out of hiding and was in India in 2007 to attend the Jaipur LitFest as it is known.
That visit of Rushdie was, however, unannounced and so it didn’t create any commotion.
But this time it was different; his visit was publicized and the organizers were expecting to give a boost to the LitFest as they had done during Rushdie’s previous appearance.
Even without Rushdie, the LitFest drew crowds this time because the mother of all talk shows Oprah Winfery was there with father of all gurus Deepak Chopra. And yet through his absence Rushdie was present. Someone noticed: Rushdie so overwhenled the LitFest that even Oprah was overshadowed. Nevertheless, the media savvy and the darling of the corporate media, Rushdie appeared on Indian TV screens in an interview conducted by Barkha Dutt.
This raises some questions:
Why is it that few religious extremists’ sentiments are given undue importance?
Why is it that no strategy is planned to improve the dismal economic condition of most of the Indian Muslims?
Why is it that no plans are prepared and executed to provide better education to the Muslim people?
Why is it that Muslims of Indian Kashmir suffer atrocities and deaths at the hands of the Indian military?
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B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com