DEKYAS NEWS World Breaking News and Trusted Source
Related Articles
It could have been a principled fight for freedom of expression in India, but in the end it was it was a bureaucratic blunder that forced a high court in New Delhi to overturn a 36-year-old ban on the import of Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses.
It happened simply because no one could find the original customs order.
Even its name is as bureaucratic and mundane as it gets: India's Customs Notification No. 405/12/88-CUS-III.
But the impact of the order, issued by India's finance ministry, was significant, halting all imports of the book and setting off a chain reaction.
India, where Rushdie was born, was the first country to ban the book, just nine days after its publication in September 1988. In February 1989, Iran's then Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini decided issued a religious edict called a fatwa forcing the author to go into hiding.
The magical realist novel, inspired by the life of the Prophet Mohammed, was considered blasphemous by Islamic leaders and led to protests and book burnings.
Rushdie, now 77, gradually came out of hiding and resumed normal life, but the author was the victim of an assassination attempt at a speaking event in New York in 2022, when he was stabbed multiple times and left blind in one eye.
“Why should I be denied access to this book?”
The man who challenged the Indian book ban in court, Sandipan Khan, is suitably nonchalant about his victory, almost at pains to explain why he filed the lawsuit in the first place.
“You can blame it on my conscience, you can blame it on my emotions at that particular moment,” Khan, 50, told CBC News in an interview from Calcutta.
Or, he said, it was simple curiosity.
In August 2022, author Salman Rushdie was brutally stabbed during a speech, and although he survived, he lost one eye and the use of one hand – but the spirit, humor and irreverence remained. In a wide-ranging interview, CBC's Nahlah Ayed spoke to Rushdie about the attack, using words as a weapon and as freedom of expression.
“It is also my fundamental right,” said Khan, who described himself as an avid reader. “Why should I be denied access to this book?”
The judges will hear the case in the Delhi High Court wrote in the November 5 ruling that since no one could produce the original order for them to examine, “we have no choice but to assume that no such notice exists, and therefore we cannot examine its validity.”
It's not exactly a victory for free speech, Khan's lawyer said.
“The court has gone ahead and ruled on a technicality,” Uddyam Mukherjee said. “We can't really consider it a win or a loss.”
Mukherjee said he would have liked the court to delve into whether the customs order was constitutionally valid, but because the ruling does not set a precedent, he said he will settle for possible ripple effects.
“Maybe in the future these kinds of reports will be passed on more carefully. Maybe,” he said in an interview.
Book not easy to find in stores
Rushdie has not commented on the court's ruling, but his publishing company, Penguin Random House India, issued a statement to The Associated Press calling the decision an “important new development” and saying it was “considering the next steps ” was.
Several bookstores in Mumbai have said this The Satanic Verses was not yet available and that until now there had been no interest from people wanting to buy the book.
When the customs order was first issued, Rushdie wrote in an open letter to then Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi that the move was “deeply disturbing,” adding that he hated his “book being treated as a political football used'.
Rushdie also noted the curious way in which the Indian government banned the book.
“Many people around the world will find it strange that it is the Finance Ministry that decides what Indian readers can or cannot read,” he said.
The author further pointed out that the ministry specified that the ban “did not detract from the literary and artistic value of Rushdie's work,” adding sardonically, “Thank you for the good review.”
As for Khan, he can't review the book yet because he hasn't read it.
He emailed Rushdie's publishing house to ask when the novel will be available for purchase in India, but has not yet received a response.
Before the ruling was issued, Khan refrained from downloading the book online because that would technically violate the ban, but now that the case has been decided he has a copy.
He hasn't gotten past the first few pages yet. Too busy, he said.
