Rushdie ‘not a hero’

Chetan Bhagat takes a swing at the controversial author.

JAIPUR:

Bestselling Indian writer Chetan Bhagat has criticised the support leant to authors whose books are banned for offending religious communities, a day after Salman Rushdie cancelled his trip to India to attend the Jaipur Festival citing threats against his life. Rushdie, who attended the festival in 2007, was due to speak about his 1981 Booker prize-winning novel Midnight’s Children and also join a panel discussion on how Indians have adapted the English language.

Bhagat, whose five novels have sold around six million copies, condemned the banning of texts at the Jaipur Literature Festival but criticised people who proclaim their writers as heroes for upholding the right to free speech. “[Banned books] have hurt people, they have hurt Muslims,” said Bhagat. “I don’t think anyone should be banned... but let’s not make heroes out of them.”

The row over Rushdie’s participation began last week with demands from the influential Darululoom Deoband seminary in northern India that he be kept out of the country. Member of Parliament and president of Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) Asaduddin Owaisi has demanded the immediate arrest of the writers who on Friday read Salman Rushdie’s banned book Satanic Verses at the Jaipur Literature Festival. “Reading from a banned book is a deliberate provocation and proof that the festival is a forum for Islam-bashing,” Owaisi told IANS on Saturday.

“Their idea is to vitiate the peaceful atmosphere prevailing in Rajasthan and the whole of India. We demand that the government of Rajasthan, the government of India and local police take immediate action,” he said.

The annual Jaipur festival — which is free to attend — has mushroomed into a major literary, business and social occasion in the Indian calendar and it attracts tens of thousands of Indian and foreign visitors every year. Among more than 250 speakers this year are US chat show queen Oprah Winfrey, biologist and atheist author Richard Dawkins, and Indian bestselling novelist Chetan Bhagat.

With additional information from IANS

Published in The Express Tribune, January 22^nd, 2012.