January 21, 2012

READING “THE SATANIC VERSES” IN INDIA: IS IT ILLEGAL?

Posted by The Himalayan Voice:

[In their statements, the organizers, who include William Dalrymple, Namita Gokhale and Sanjoy Roy, said the festival is not the venue for illegal conduct. “Our endeavor has always been to provide a platform to foster an exchange of ideas and the love of literature, strictly within the four corners of the law,” the statement read. “We remain committed to this objective.”]

By Vikas Bajaj 
Altaf Hussain/Reuters
Members of the audience listen to authors during a 
session at the Jaipur Literature  Festival on Friday.
Did Amitava Kumar, Hari Kunzru and other authors who read passages from Salman Rushdie’s 
“The Satanic Verses,” which is banned in India, Friday evening at the Jaipur Literature Festival violate Indian law?
That has become a matter of much speculation and debate at the festival on Saturday. Late Friday night, organizers of the festival released a statement saying that they were not consulted before the writers read the passages and the readings were “not endorsed by the Festival or attributable to its organizers or anyone acting on their behalf.”
Some writers attending the festival criticized the festival organizers for not standing by Mr. Kumar, Mr. Kunzru and Ruchir Joshi and Jeet Thayil – two other speakers who also read passages from the banned book according to news reports.
In their statements, the organizers, who include William Dalrymple, Namita Gokhale and Sanjoy Roy, said the festival is not the venue for illegal conduct. “Our endeavor has always been to provide a platform to foster an exchange of ideas and the love of literature, strictly within the four corners of the law,” the statement read. “We remain committed to this objective.”
A senior official from the Rajasthan police said that no cases have been registered against the authors, neither has anyone been arrested.
To get a legal opinion on whether the readings constituted a violation of the law, India Ink spoke to Kavita Srivastava, the general secretary of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties for Rajasthan State. She said the writers appear to have been reading from an article that was quoting “The Satanic Verses” and not the book itself, which suggests to her that they cannot be charged with a crime.

CITING SECURITY FEARS, RUSHDIE WON’T ATTEND LITERARY FESTIVAL

[Mr. Rushdie’s cancellation is the latest in a series of blows to free speech in India that have included a court challenge to Google and Facebook for what a petitioner claimed was content that is offensive to various religious groups, and a proposal by a senior Indian minister to prescreen content posted on social networking sites.] 
By  And Sruthi Gottipati
JAIPUR, India — In the latest setback for free speech in India, Salman Rushdie, the author who has survived a 23-year-old Iranian fatwa calling for his death, backed out of attending a literature festival in his native country because of a new assassination threat against him.
In a statement, Mr. Rushdie, the Mumbai native whose 1988 novel, “The Satanic Verses,” inflamed many Muslims, said he decided not to attend the Jaipur Literature Festival, where he has spoken before, after Indian intelligence agencies warned him that “paid assassins from the Mumbai underworld may be on their way to Jaipur to ‘eliminate’ me.” He later said on Twitter that he would appear at the event via a video link.
Mr. Rushdie’s cancellation is the latest in a series of blows to free speech in India that have included a court challenge to Google and Facebook for what a petitioner claimed was content that is offensive to various religious groups, and a proposal by a senior Indian minister to prescreen content posted on social networking sites.
The Indian Constitution offers its citizens only a qualified right to free speech and allows the government to restrict speech if it deems it offensive or unacceptable to community sentiments. Moreover, the national government has often done little to protect artists, authors and others who have been singled out for violent protests by religious, ethnic and other groups. Maqbool Fida Husain, one of modern India’s greatest painters, died last year in London after living in self-imposed exile for the last several years because the government could not guarantee his safety from right-wing Hindu groups that criticized his paintings of Hindu goddesses.
India has long had a difficult relationship with Mr. Rushdie, one of its greatest living writers celebrated in the West but often considered a nuisance at home. India, which has the largest Muslim population after Indonesia and Pakistan, was the first major country to ban “The Satanic Verses.” In 1989, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa, calling for Mr. Rushdie’s assassination.
Tension had been building about Mr. Rushdie’s planned visit for several weeks. Some Muslim leaders initially said that the New York-based British citizen should be denied a visa to come to India, but Mr. Rushdie does not need a visa to visit India. Later, his opponents said they would protest his visit unless he apologized to Muslims.
It did not help Mr. Rushdie that the government of Rajasthan State, whose capital is Jaipur, openly questioned its ability to protect him. Nor did the federal government provide any public assurances that it could guarantee his safety.
Mr. Rushdie said that he did not entirely believe the intelligence reports about the threat against him but that he decided not to take any chances. “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,” he said in the statement. “I will therefore not travel to Jaipur as planned.”
Festival organizers say they expect more than 250 authors and 100,000 visitors to attend the five-day event, which is in its sixth year. It has become the most important literary event in South Asia and draws visitors from across the world. Oprah Winfrey is expected to speak Saturday.
Even before the controversy about Mr. Rushdie’s visit exploded in recent weeks, India was struggling with the balance between free speech and the sensitivities of its many religious and ethnic minorities.
The Delhi High Court, the equivalent of a United States Appeals Court, is considering a case against Google and Facebook for content that an Indian activist has argued offends the sensibilities of Hindus, Muslims and Christians. The judge overseeing the case inflamed free-speech advocates by saying that India could resort to the kind of censorship practiced in China if Internet companies did not do a better job policing their sites. Moreover, India’s government offered its official support to the petitioner’s case against the sites.
Just a month earlier, India’s minister overseeing technology and education, Kapil Sibal, suggested that sites should screen content before it is uploaded, a proposal that he and other officials later backed away from. Executives for social networking sites said that, in private meetings, Mr. Sibal was particularly incensed about unflattering and derogatory references to the leader of the ruling Congress party, Sonia Gandhi.
“We have to take care of the sensibilities of our people,” Mr. Sibal told reporters during a news conference at his home in New Delhi in early December. “Cultural ethos is very important to us.”
Earlier in 2011, one of the two ministries that Mr. Sibal oversees passed new rules governing Internet content that require Internet firms to take down within 36 hours any material posted on Web sites that officials or private citizens could deem to be disparaging, harassing, blasphemous and hateful, among other things.
Mr. Sibal, who attended the festival on Friday and spoke about and read poetry that he has written, did not address the controversy about his ministry’s policies and the Rushdie controversy. The moderator of his session, one of the festival’s organizers, cut off uncomfortable questions posed to him by the audience, according to people present during the session.
Organizers at the Jaipur Literature Festival said Mr. Rushdie’s decision not to attend was the latest in a series of assaults against the artistic community in India by the government and special interest groups.
“Why do we continue as a nation to succumb to one pressure or another?” asked Sanjoy Roy, who leads the company that organizes the festival. “This is a huge problem for Indian democracy.”
Vikas Bajaj reported from Jaipur, and Sruthi Gottipati from New Delhi.