Chanchal Kumar
Salman Rushdie, the author of The Satanic Verses, was in the news headlines some days back for reasons that can only be called tragic. He was violently attacked on stage by a Muslim man, which has led to Rushdie losing eyesight in one eye and, according to the latest news, also losing control of one hand. The good news, according to his literary agent, is that “he will live.” What is unexplainable is how quickly the news of the attack was forgotten. To those unaware of Rushdie’s past, a fatwa was issued by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini in the year 1989 because of him authoring the work The Satanic Verses, which is considered anti-Islamic and heretical to many in the Islamic world.
Perhaps the reason why the news of the attack didn’t make the news for a longer while is that more than three decades has elapsed since the publication of the novel in question and the issuing of the fatwa, which made life dangerous for Rushdie for an extended period of his life. The Satanic Verses was published in 1988, six years before I was born. To satisfy the reader’s curiosity, the reason why I am writing this essay is extremely coincidental. Some months back, I purchased Salman Rushdie’s collection of non-fiction, having studied his novel Midnight’s Children as part of our compulsory reading during my Master’s at Delhi University and being impressed by the writer’s story-telling gifts. After reading about the fact that he was badly injured, I decided to go through his collection of short essays lying with me, titled Step Across This Line.
In his essays, which cover a wide range of issues and themes, there is also the central part of the book, which contains jottings going back to the years of the fatwa and him musing about how his life has changed irrevocably since. In many of the speeches which he delivered around this time, he frequently spoke about freedom of expression, the right to say what one wishes to without fear of repercussions. Apart from the writings during his time of still surviving the fatwa, the collection also contains essays on literary figures, Arundhati Roy being one. In his essay on Roy, written during the time when Roy, Medha Patkar, and others were opposing the building of the Narmada Dam, Rushdie writes about Roy in a way that a fan would, highlighting the aspects of her personality that are brave and courageous. Also, there’s an essay on M. K. Gandhi, where Rushdie is more critical. To quote from the book,
“… He (Gandhi) sought to improve the conditions of India’s Untouchables, yet in today’s India, these peoples, now calling themselves Dalits, and forming an increasingly well organized and effective political grouping, have rallied round the memory of their own leader, Dr. Ambedkar, an old rival of Gandhi’s. As Ambedkar’s star has risen among the Dalits, so Gandhi’s stature has been reduced.” (184)
Although I am yet to finish reading the book, I am positive that this is the only place in the collection that Rushdie mentions the word ‘Dalit’. This is not surprising since it has been pointed out in numerous cases in the past, Arundhati Roy’s example included, that Savarnas of all hues, across the spectrum of religions, remember Babasaheb Ambedkar and Dalits only when Gandhi is in the picture. Other than that, Dr. Ambedkar (and Dalits) ceased to matter to Savarnas when Babasaheb had already said that caste is the issue of Savarnas, and it is they who should take the lead to build an equitable society.
Coming back to Salman Rushdie, what is important to note is that he made a choice: to live with the bounty offered on his head or to rewrite the book in question, or apologize. Throughout Step Across This Line, Rushdie makes it a point to assert that no matter what, he will not take back what he wrote, and he tirelessly worked—he met the heads of governments, influential politicians, writers from around the world, delivered lectures in Ivy League colleges (his alma mater) on the value of freedom for a writer, and raised support for the situation that he found himself in. Finally, however, it turned out just as he had feared, the “principal danger… a random person coming out of nowhere and attacking”. (The Associated Press)
However, to reiterate, Rushdie lives. But the fact that is more dear to me, is the almost daily news clips of manual workers dying of suffocation while cleaning septic tanks. Steve Jay Gould, the American historian of science, once said:
“I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”
If Salman Rushdie is Einstein, then the Dalits who are forced to live an inhuman life are the people who do not figure in the hallowed grounds of Savarna literature. In these places, speaking one’s mind is considered a fundamental, inalienable right. However, a life of dignity for those oppressed and marginalized for hundreds of years isn’t.
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Chanchal Kumar is from Jharkhand and currently lives in Delhi, India. His poems have previously appeared and awarded in The Sunflower Collective, Hamilton Stone Review, Welter Journal, Name and None, Young Poets Network, UK including others. Recently, his poems were translated to Bengali by Harakiri Journal. He is pursuing M.Phil at University of Delhi.
