To Salman Rushdie, With Love: India at 75 and Midnight’s Children

Of stabbings and careers that thrive despite all odds

On October 15, 1994, Naguib Mahfouz, the Nobel Prize-winning novelist, was stabbed several times as he left his Cairo apartment. 2 days back, Salman Rushdie, was stabbed 12 times in his face and neck by a 24 year old man who was so offended by Rushdie’s fiction that he didn’t even read them. Such is the state of affairs today that one can be killed for creating a work of fiction if someone somewhere finds it offensive.

Rushdie’s fourth book, The Satanic Verses, was banned in 1988 in a number of countries, including Iran, after it was considered by some to contain blasphemous passages. The truth is that it is novel that merely examines (within the dreams of the protagonist) some religious doctrines but it seems like the mere act of analysis within one’s subconscious is a crime worthy of serious punishment. That to our mind seems like censorship of the highest order but we will let you arrive at your conclusion.