𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐞𝐜𝐡, 𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐕𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐁𝐲: 𝐍𝐞𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐦 𝐌𝐚𝐡𝐚𝐣𝐚𝐧 𝐒𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐡

𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐞𝐜𝐡, 𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐕𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 

𝐁𝐲: 𝐍𝐞𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐦 𝐌𝐚𝐡𝐚𝐣𝐚𝐧 𝐒𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐡 

                                   Salman Rushdie 

                             𝐍𝐞𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐦 𝐌𝐚𝐡𝐚𝐣𝐚𝐧 𝐒𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐡 

☆Even in the 21st century religious intolerance continues in democratic nations as well. The stabbing of Salman Rushdie in New York has once again raised 'Free Speech Debates'. After the attack, writers and world leaders hailed Rushdie as a symbol of free expression. However the battle lines around his novel 'The Satanic Verses' were never cleanly drawn. Even after three decades, a certain section of Muslim's feelings are yet not assuaged. Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old New Jersey man, was arrested at the scene and charged with second degree attempted murder and assault with a weapon. Law enforcement officials have not publicly stated what motivated the attack, which Mr. Rushdie’s family said had left him with “life-changing injuries.” When renowned artist Maqbool Fida Hussain painted 'Durga', Hindu Right wingers alleged 'nudity of the goddess'. Even Hussain's life in India became miserable and he took the citizenship of Kuwait. He died in isolation in London. Recently Nupur Sharma and Naveen Kumar Jindal, BJP spokespersons, made derogatory remarks on Prophet Muhammad, which were condemned all over the world. Even India's international diplomatic relations were under threat. The situation came under control due to the extensive efforts of the Ministry of External Affairs, Dr. S. Jaishankar and his diplomats globally. Even now the Muslim society is angry about those remarks. Is this religious tolerance? Two years ago Salman Rushdie joined prominent cultural figures signing an open letter decrying an increasingly intolerant climate' and warning that the 'free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted'. It was a declaration of principles Rushdie had embodied since 1989, when a 'Fatwa by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini', the Supreme Leader of Iran, calling for his murder, made him a reluctant symbol of free speech. The letter, published by Harper’s Magazine in June 2020 after racial justice protests swept the United States, drew a backlash with some denouncing it as a reactionary display of thin-skinnedness and privilege — signed, as one critic put it, by 'rich fools'. The reaction dismayed Salman Rushdie, but didn’t surprise him. “Put it like this: the kinds of people who stood up for me in the bad years might not do so now,” he told The Guardian in 2021. “The idea that being offended is a valid critique has gained a lot of traction.” 

                                   SALMAN RUSHDIE 

When 'The Satanic Verses' was published in 1988, the battle lines over free speech were not as neat as some may remember. The novel, which 'fictionalized elements of the life of the Prophet Muhammad with depictions' that offended many Muslims and were labeled as blasphemous by some, inspired sometimes violent protests around the world, including in India, where dozens of people were killed in 1989 after the police fired at Muslim demonstrators in Mumbai. Salman Rushdie had been born into a prosperous liberal Muslim family in 1947. In the West, the defense of Rushdie was hardly universally robust. Former president Jimmy Carter, writing in The New York Times in 1989, denounced the Fatwa but charged Rushdie with “vilifying” the Prophet Muhammad and “defaming” the Quran. “While Rushdie’s First Amendment freedoms are important,” he wrote, “we have tended to promote him and his book with little acknowledgment that it is a direct insult to those millions of Moslems whose sacred beliefs have been violated and are suffering in restrained silence the added embarrassment of the Ayatollah’s irresponsibility.” 'Midnight’s Children' (1981) Salman Rushdie’s second novel, about modern India’s coming-of-age, received the Booker Prize, and became an international success. The story is told through the 'life of Saleem Sinai', born at the very moment of India’s independence.

At the same time, there were some defenses from the Muslim world. The Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz found the book insulting, but signed a letter defending Mr. Rushdie’s right to publish. And in a 1991 article, the Syrian intellectual Sadiq Jalal al-Azm accused Western liberals of having a patronizing view of Muslims. “Perhaps the deep seated and silent assumption in the West,” he wrote, “remains that Muslims are simply not worthy of serious dissidents, do not deserve them and are ultimately incapable of producing them.” In 1990, Rushdie made a carefully worded statement of apology, in a futile attempt to have the Fatwa lifted (a move he later regretted). In the years after the Fatwa, Salman Rushdie lived under tight security in London, as several of his translators and publishers were attacked, some fatally. In 1998, after the Iranian government stated that it no longer backed the Fatwa, he moved to New York City, where he became a fixture in literary and social circles, popping up at parties, events and in the media (including a cameo on “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” where he counseled Larry David, who had also run afoul of the Ayatollahs, on “Fatwa sex”). But as the Fatwa (which was never officially rescinded) seemed to fade in significance, the conversation over free speech shifted, particularly in the United States. The notion that offensive speech is 'violence' gained grounds, as younger progressives increasingly critiqued the principle of free speech as too often providing cover for hate speech. 'Free speech' became a rallying cry of conservatives who used it as a weapon against liberals they accuse of wanting to censor opposing views. Tensions over free speech were thrown into high relief in 2015, when the writers group 'PEN America' decided to present an award for courage to the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which had continued publishing after French Muslim terrorists murdered 12 staff members in an attack on its offices. Six writers withdrew as hosts of PEN’s annual gala over concerns about the award, on the grounds that the magazine had trafficked in racism and Islamophobia. More than 140 prominent writers subsequently signed a letter protesting the honor. Rushdie’s reaction to the protest was blunt. “I hope nobody ever comes after them,” he told The New York Times. (On Twitter, he called the six writers who withdrew, some of whom were good friends, an obscene name and labeled them “Six Authors in Search of a bit of Character.”) After last week’s attack, many writers and world leaders rushed to express solidarity with Mr. Rushdie. President Emmanuel Macron of France hailed him as the embodiment of “freedom and the fight against obscurantism” against “the forces of hatred and barbarism.”

The attack prompted renewed interest in the 1991 killing of Hitoshi Igarashi, Salman Rushdie’s Japanese translator. That crime remains unsolved. After he was stabbed, many hailed Mr. Rushdie as the embodiment of freedom. Others expressed reluctance to use the attack as fodder for highly-politicized polemics on free speech.

But in literary circles, some observers saw a reticence in some quarters to name the specific forces that had long targeted Rushdie. Thomas Chatterton Williams wrote on Twitter after the attack: “Words are not violence. Violence is violence. That distinction must never be downplayed or forgotten, even on behalf of a group we deem oppressed.” Rushdie, for all his full-throatedness, “never wanted to be a symbol,” Mr. Kunzru said, citing “the horrible irony of this inventive, playful writer” being defined for many by “this dreadful, somber threat.” In retrospect, I believe that this environment should be contained. A writer is the mirror of society. In the name of freedom of writing, free speech etc. we should not use abusive, retrogressive language on any religion, deities, Prophet Mohammed Rasul Sahib, Jesus Christ ... When we adopt 'Vasudeva Kutumbakam' i.e. 'The world is one family' then we have to embrace all religions and mankind. We must move towards world peace.

𝐍𝐞𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐦 𝐌𝐚𝐡𝐚𝐣𝐚𝐧 𝐒𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐡 

(𝐋𝐋.𝐁. 𝐌.𝐏𝐇𝐈𝐋. 𝐌.𝐀. 𝐒𝐭. 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐧'𝐬 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐠𝐞,𝐓𝐕 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧-𝐅𝐓𝐈𝐈, 𝐏𝐮𝐧𝐞)

𝐒𝐫. 𝐉𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭, 𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫, 𝐃𝐨𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲, 𝐒𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐇𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐑𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐏𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐬𝐭 

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