Why I quoted from The Satanic Verses

On Friday, over lunch, I heard the news that Salman Rushdie would not be attending the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF). His visit had been in doubt for some time. Initially we had been scheduled to have a conversation on stage that afternoon, but since Maulana Abul Qasim Nomani, the head of the Darul Uloom seminary in Deoband, had called for him to be prevented from entering India, the festival organisers had been fighting a storm of manufactured controversy, not unconnected with the upcoming Uttar Pradesh state elections.

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