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Satanic Verses author attacks Indian politicians for failing to protect free speech after video link appearance is scrapped
Salman Rushdie has launched a scathing attack on the Indian government for failing to protect free speech after organisers of Asia's biggest literary festival were forced to cancel a video-linked appearance by the British author when owners of the venue in the north-west Indian city of Jaipur decided it would be unsafe.
However, in an interview with the local NDTV network, the 64-year-old author reserved his harshest words for the "Muslim groups that were so unscrupulous, and whose idea of free speech is that they are the only ones entitled to it".
"[If] Anyone else, who they disagree with, wishes to open his mouth, they will try and stop that mouth," Rushdie said.
"That's what we call tyranny. It's much worse than censorship because it comes with the threat of violence."
The interview followed the last-minute cancellation of Rushdie's speech to thousands waiting at the Diggi Palace, a heritage hotel in the centre of Jaipur.
British writer and historian William Dalrymple, one of the festival's directors, said the decision had been taken by the owners of the venue.
"The police commissioner told us there would be violence in the venue and a riot outside where thousands were gathering if we continued," Dalrymple said.
"Our host was unwilling to bear responsibility for … possible deaths in a venue full of children and old people. It's a bad day, and a horrible moment for us all."
Sanjoy Roy, producer of the festival, said that "once again we are being bullied and we are having to step down".
Rushdie was scheduled to participate in several events at the festival but withdrew on Friday citing security fears after a warning of an assassination plot from local police.
In his interview with NDTV he said he now felt the scare seemed "incredibly fishy" and that he felt "a bit of a fool to have been taken in by it".
"The threat of assassination was either exaggerated or fabricated. And my view is that it was probably fabricated," Rushdie said.
He blamed politicians from India's ruling Congress party who feared alienating Muslim voters in the run-up to crucial provincial polls in coming weeks.
"Currently the people who claim to be speaking for India's Muslims are either not the true leaders, or they are certainly extremely bad leaders. And the fact that the political system plays with those leaders, wants to placate them, and curry favour with them, that of course is the fault of the political system," he said.
Two weeks before the festival, a senior conservative cleric and Islamic groups began a campaign to stop the author attending, saying his most famous and controversial work, The Satanic Verses, was offensive to Muslims.
The publication of the book in 1988 prompted a fatwa calling for Rushdie to be killed from the Iranian religious leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenini and sent its author into hiding.
The affair has hit headlines worldwide and prompted a fierce debate within India. Rushdie's withdrawal from the festival last week led several writers, including British author Hari Kunzru, to publicly read from The Satanic Verses in protest. The book is banned in India and some claim that a public reading potentially punishable by imprisonment.
Groups of demonstrators had gathered outside the festival venue during the day.
Jaipur's police chief, Vijendra Jhala, told reporters that "in view of the resentment simmering in the city" he had told the organisers "they cannot allow the writer to speak via video".
Ram Pratap Singh, the owner of the hotel, confirmed the decision was his own on the advice of the police.
Rushdie, who has visited India on many occasions and spoke at Jaipur in 2007, said that his "overwhelming feeling" was "disappointment on behalf of India, which is a country that I have loved all my life and whose long-term commitment to secularism and liberty is something I've praised for much of my life."
"Now I find an India in which religious extremists can prevent free expression of ideas at a literary festival, in which the politicians are too … in bed with those groups to wish to oppose them for narrow electoral reasons, in which the police forces are unable to secure venues against demonstrators even when they know the demonstration is on its way," the author told NDTV.
An internet petition urging the Indian government to reconsider the ban on The Satanic Verses had been signed by more than a thousand people by early evening.
Nearly 70,000 visitors have so far attended this year's festival. Huge crowds travelled to see Oprah Winfrey, the US television presenter who is filming a show in India, on Sunday morning.
Thousands also watched the novelists Ben Okri and Michael Ondaatje as well as playwrights Tom Stoppard and David Hare over the weekend.
Following the cancellation, Tarun Tejpal, an author and editor of Tehelka magazine, told an audience at the festival that Rushdie's voice would "speak in a thousand different ways".
"It's not a victory for them. It's just a momentary setback for all of us," Tejpal said.
Dalrymple said he felt "personally disgraced" that "after three weeks of struggle we had to give in to those who wish to suppress free speech".
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