SATANIC INTENTIONS

The recent controversy surrounding Satanic verses and Rushdie's inability to attend the Jaipur Literary Fest owing to threats by Muslim fundamentalist groups has exposed the farce that is happening in the name of freedom of expression, as it may only lead to an up-sell of this book, a cashing in on religious sentiments by the political parties and setting an example of modern journalism by the controversy-hungry media. 
This controvesry has arisen in India at a time when free speech is under threat. Recent attempts to institute ‘pre-screening’ of internet content by the Government, and bans of books such as Joseph Lelyveld’s biography of Gandhi, show that these are not good times for those who wish to say unpopular things in India. It is funny how the Information and Broadcasting ministry okays a show casting famous porn-star on prime time Indian TV but screens Google and Facebook for any content even slightly in contravention to the law.


SATANIC VERSES- The book and the controversy

The Satanic Verses primarily contains three stories. The first story concerns two Indians (Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha) who fall out of a jumbo jet and miraculously survive.
The second story is a dream about aspects of the story of Muhammad (called Mohound in the book), the prophet of Islam. It is partly historical fact, partly the novelist's imagination. The third story concerns a Muslim village in India whose whole population follows a holy woman into the Arabian Sea, expecting the waters will part for them to walk to Mecca. But the waters stay unparted, and finally the whole village perishes.

Before understanding the Satanic Verses episode, we need to know that Islam's core lies in acceptance of the Qur'an as the Word of God. It means accepting the faith that God (or Allah) sent His message to mankind via the angel Gabriel who passed it along to Muhammad; and that the Qur'an is unerring. To doubt the Qur'an is to doubt the exact message of God, and is seen as an act of apostasy.

The Satanic verses episode concerns the fact that Muhammad was born and lived in Mecca, long a major center of the polytheistic Arabian religions, and the leaders of Muhammad's own tribe- 'Quryash', suggested to Muhammad that if he adopted a flexible attitude toward their idols, they in return would adopt a more friendly attitude toward his preaching.

At this point, according to the holy book, Satan distorted the words of Muhammad so that he accepted  three goddesses of Quryash and confirmed the validity of their intercession between man and God. Quryash was delighted by Muhammad's acceptance of the three Goddesses. 

But then the angel Gabriel (the normal source of the Qur'an) came to Muhammad and revealed to him that the devil had deceived him into uttering the last two lines. Gabriel revoked these lines by Muhammad and replaced them with verses denouncing the three goddesses.

However in  Rushdie's novel, it is implied that the prophet spoke the false verses not because Satan put them in his mouth, but because he saw an opportunity to further his own cause. 

To cover his deceit, Mahound (analogous to Muhammad) adopted the notion, put forward by one of his followers, that the devil made him do it. If what is implied in the book is true, then the Qur'an becomes a human artifact, destroying the very sanctity on which it is built.

But that is not what Rushdie actually implied- according to him the whole sequence, is the part of a dream, and the dreamer, Gibreel Farishta, is a man who suffers from "paranoid delusions" of being the Archangel Gibreel. So this places Rushdie at fair distance from the story of the book.


The Protests and Death Sentence

Rushdie and his book provoked the Muslims of England and South Africa, the Saudi authorities, mobs in Pakistan, India and in many other parts of the world. The most interesting part to note is that almost no one who protested against the book had read more than few excerpts of it. The only thing they were aware was that an author named Salaman Rushdie wrote a book called Satanic Verses, defying the Qur'an in some way.

Finally Ayatollah Khomeini, of Iran, declared Satanic Verses in opposition to Islam and pronounced a death sentence for Rushdie and his publishers and anyone who was aware of the content of the book, calling Muslims of the world to find Rushdie and his publishers and execute them as soon as possible, and promising martyrdom to those who would carry it out.

Political critics nearly unanimously saw this act in political terms. Former Iranian President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr saw the event as "a political affair and not a 

religious one," and the leader of the main Iranian opposition group, agreed.

Some emphasized the domestic political tensions in Iran and that Satanic Verses was an "an issue likely to engage the imagination of the poor and illiterate masses". Harvey Morris saw it as an attempt  intended to deflect from the Iraq-Iran war. Others saw it mostly in terms of foreign policy. Youssef M. Ibrahim explained it as Khomeini's bid "to reassert his role as spokesman and protector of Islamic causes." William Waldegrave of the British Foreign Office blamed the incident on "radical elements in Iran, which did not want their country to have normal relations with the West. 

Whatever be the real reason, the protests took place in many countries of the world, taking the lives of many ignorant and misguided protesters.


Darul Uloom and the ban in India

A spokesperson of the Darul Uloom Deoband – a staunch Muslim institution in the state of Uttar Pradesh (a state where elections are due!) made a statement saying that Salman Rushdie, ought not to be issued a visa for entering India to attend the forthcoming Jaipur Literary Festival.

Amusingly, he ignored the fact that Rushdie does not need a visa to enter India as he holds a PIO (‘Person of Indian Origin’) Card that entitles him to enter and exit India as and when he wishes, and that he has come to India several times in the last decade, and his would-be presence in the fest had nothing to do with the controversies around the book.
Howsoever, Darul Uloom strictly forbade Rushdie's arrival in India this time, banning his appearance in any way in the Festival.


Political Agendas

The manipulation of religious sentiment for political mileage has a long-standing history in India, and this was a particularly typical example of a traditional election-time vote-seeking activity. Rushdie controvesry seemed to become a mighty 'election campaign' issue in the state of Uttar Pradesh where many big political contenders - Congress, SP, BSP- have their eyes set on the bloc of the Muslim Vote (If the already promised, additional 4.5% Muslim OBC reservation in the state was not enough!). 
So the Congress, a.k.a the UPA Government, in its effort to win the benediction of the Darul Uloom Deoband and the fundamentalist muslim votes in UP, failed to guarantee protection to Salman Rushdie, on his coming to India. It is appalling how the largest democracy in the world, that promises to be a world superpower one day can not guarantee protection to one single individual.

Who is responsible!

Is Salman Rushdie the innocent victim here? Satanic versus has never been touted as his best work by literary critics, but gave him more fame than any other book, only because of the steaming controversies and fatwas engendered by the dangerously indelicate ideas expressed in the book. The characters Gabreel and Mahound are obviously not pure fiction but cleverly and subtly analogous to the characters from the holy book. The slander and protests gave him much more fame in the west than east, and only took lives of many gullible and misguided protesters.

Freedom of expression is the most fundamental- on which all others depend. But it is tricky as it gives the people a tendency to abuse it blatantly, often mistaken by people as a right to express opinions without responsible self control or consequent social implications. 

Against every right conferred upon individuals, stands a responsibility to be exercised, and freedom of expression easily carries the heaviest of responsibilities. Those which are being neglected by many, including those who lead us today.