Rushdie calls off India visit
PTI | 04:01 PM,Jan 20,2012
Wasfia Jalali Jaipur, Jan 20 (PTI)
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Controversial author Salman Rushdie today cancelled his visit to India for the Jaipur Literature Festival citing threats to his life, ending days of speculation over his participation in the event.
In a statement read out to the press by festival producer Sanjoy K Roy, the Booker Prize winning author stated that he had been told by intelligence sources in Maharashtra and Rajasthan that "paid assassins" from the Mumbai underworld may be on their way to Jaipur to "eliminate" him. "While I have some doubts about the accuracy of this intelligence, it would be irresponsible of me to come to the Festival in such circumstances; irresponsible to my family, to the festival audience, and to my fellow writers. I will, therefore, not travel to Jaipur as planned," he said as the five-day literary meet kicked off today.
The 65-year-old novelist later said on Twitter that he would participate at the event via video link. While the festival organisers said such incidents were essentially unacceptable, the organisations protesting the visit said freedom of expression does not give anyone right to write anything objectionable.
Reacting to the announcement, festival director Namita Gokhale said she was "deeply disappointed" even so when the author had been a part of this gathering in 2007. Co-director William Dalrymple said Rushdie’s case has been that of "Chinese whispers" as most people have not read what he has written.
"Salman is a writer of enormous breath and writes on huge variety of subjects. His passionate engagement with Indian Islamic history shows he is as far as can possibly be removed from Islamophobia.
"He is one of India’s greatest writers and in a more just world his arrival here would have been welcomed by people showering rose petals on the road," he said. Rushdie's proposed visit was objected to by India's largest Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband besides raising the hackles of several right wing groups. MORE PTI WAJ SDA ANS VMN
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