My name is Najma Firdaus Khan. I work with an international publishing house in New Delhi. My employers were to release a few new books, for the launch of which I had to be in the Jaipur literary festival. I have been there in the past and have always enjoyed the intellectual ambience of the litfest. However, this time it was not the same.
Even before I landed in the pink city there was much clamour about Salman Rushdie’s coming to the festival and its opposition by a section of people. Now, I would be candid in my admission that I have not read Rushdie. Despite my best efforts, I could not move beyond 80-odd pages of Midnight’s Children. And I have not even tried any other book written by him. But that speaks more about my credentials as reader than Rushdie’s standing as a writer.
Being in the business of books, I know about Rushdie’s literary merit. He is a writer many significant people talk about. I have not read The Satanic Verses, so would desist from speaking about the book. However, I have heard divergent views about the controversial book from both educated Muslims as well as the conservatives. This has stoked my desire to go through the book. Since I know now — through the recent media reports — that the book, in parts or even as a whole, is available on the internet, I’ll read it and find out the truth myself. Meanwhile, on the debate if Rushdie has actually offended Islam, I will give the writer the benefit of doubt. As a Muslim, I don’t give Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the then spiritual leader of Iran, or any other government which banned the book the right to control my faith.
On Wednesday, the last day of the litfest, I stood close to where a certain professor Salim Engineer, a representative of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, who was hawked by media persons, imploring him for a sound bite which could generate some controversy. That I found to be a lopsided approach by the media. Prof Engineer’s presence on the press terrace in the venue is proof of his importance as perceived by the organisers. Not everybody there had the access to that area. He was being treated like a prized pigeon.
I don’t find anything wrong in the protesters offering namaz at the venue. They were there since morning and at the time of zuhar (midday) namaz, they just sat there and offered prayers. But who were they if not a bunch of politically-motivated people? I also went to Ramganj and Muslim Musafirkhana, the two Muslim-dominated areas in Jaipur. While I enjoyed finger-licking korma and biryani there, I didn’t see anybody protesting. A couple of people I talked to didn’t even know who Rushdie was! How would they? And, like Javed Akhtar saheb asked the audience at the last session on the day, if religion governs us or we govern the religion, I ask the protesters the same question.
The chain of events on the last day of the litfest looked too dramatic to be real. First of all, after so much clamour over impromptu readings from the controversial book by the four writers, organisers should not have planned Rushdie’s video-conference, if they actually “feared for their children’s lives”. Secondly, professor Engineer enthroned on the press terrace all daylong looked more important than Rushdie himself. Why was he there? Thirdly, an emotional Sanjoy Roy, one of the organisers, while announcing that the video-conference had been called off, had a lump in the throat which choked his voice. That I thought was too much. It actually gave away the game. But on a second thought, I don’t blame the organisers, like I don’t blame the Congress (which has UP polls in sight). Everybody wants a slice of controversy. It sells so effortlessly.
The author’s name, of course, is changed on request.
