Indian officials misplace Rushdie book ban order

Is it legal to import Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses in India? This question has emerged after the Delhi High Court suggested that the 1988 notification banning the book’s import might no longer be valid because the government could not locate the document.

The Satanic Verses, a novel widely criticized by some Muslims as blasphemous, was banned in India shortly after its release. The book sparked protests worldwide and led to Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issuing a fatwa in 1989, calling for Rushdie’s assassination. As a result, the Indian-born Booker Prize-winning author went into hiding for nearly a decade.

Though the book remains officially banned in India, legal experts are now divided on whether it can be imported, given the government’s inability to find the original ban order. Some believe that unless the government reaffirms the ban with a fresh notification, the book could be legally imported. Others, however, caution that there may still be practical barriers to its entry.

The issue arose when Sandipan Khan, a resident of West Bengal, tried to buy a copy of The Satanic Verses but found that it was not available for sale in India and could not be imported. In 2017, Khan filed a Right to Information (RTI) request to obtain the official notification of the book’s ban. However, the government sent him through multiple departments, none of which were able to locate the document.

In 2019, Khan approached the Delhi High Court, arguing that the ban violated his right to freedom of expression and his right to access information. Despite multiple attempts, the government departments failed to produce the notification, even though customs records from as far back as 1968 were available. On November 5, 2023, the Delhi High Court ruled that it had no choice but to “presume” the ban notification no longer existed, making it impossible to assess its validity. This raised a crucial question: if a notification can’t be found, does the ban still hold?

The court has yet to clarify whether the book can now be legally imported into India. It advised Khan to explore other legal avenues to obtain the book, leaving the issue unresolved. Uddyam Mukherjee, Khan’s lawyer, told the BBC that federal departments could not provide any definitive answers when the court inquired about the missing notification.

Madan Lokur, a former judge of the Supreme Court, noted that if the notification cannot be found, then technically, no ban exists, and the book could be imported. However, Lokur pointed out that the government could still issue a new notification to reimpose the ban, as the court has not declared the ban unconstitutional but only presumed the notification’s absence.

Mukherjee argued that the absence of a legal notification means there are no impediments to importing The Satanic Verses. But some experts are skeptical. Senior lawyer Raju Ramachandran called this interpretation “a little extreme,” emphasizing that the court only ruled the petition invalid because the notification couldn’t be found, not that the book could be legally imported.

Sanjay Hegde, another senior lawyer, noted that the book could have been published in India, as only its import was banned, not its publication. However, he added that no publisher was willing to print it in India due to the controversy surrounding the book.

The controversy surrounding The Satanic Verses has also led to instances of legal action. In 2012, the Rajasthan state government attempted to arrest four Indian authors—Hari Kunzru, Ruchir Joshi, Amitava Kumar, and Jeet Thayil—after they read passages from the book at a literary festival. At the time, legal experts argued that downloading and reading the book, which had been banned for import but not for domestic distribution, could not be considered a criminal act. Still, access to online versions of the book has been scarce in India.

Rushdie, now 76, continues to face threats for his outspoken views on Islam. In 2022, he was stabbed during a public event in New York, losing an eye and suffering multiple injuries. The attacker, Hadi Matar, has been charged with attempted murder.

In his memoir, Rushdie criticized the handling of the ban in India, pointing out that no proper review of the book was conducted by an authorized body in the country. He also lamented the lack of a judicial process in the matter, highlighting the arbitrary nature of the ban.

As the legal debate over The Satanic Verses’s import status continues, the case underscores broader concerns about censorship, freedom of expression, and the rule of law in India. The court’s decision to presume the ban’s non-existence leaves open the possibility of a new legal landscape, but the final outcome remains uncertain.