Modi's silence permitting 'thuggish violence': Salman Rushdie

New Delhi, October 13: Prime Minister rendra Modi’s “silence” along with the silence of institutions like the Sahitya Akademi is permitting a new “degree of thuggish violence” in India, said celebrated author Salman Rushdie. Speaking to NTDV from London, Rushdie said the rising intolerance in India posed a “real grave danger” to liberties. “There are attacks on ordiry liberties, the ordiry right of assembly, the ordiry right to organize an event in which people can talk about books and ideas freely and without hostility, that seems to be in real grave danger in India today,” he said, according to a statement from NDTV.

Making it clear that he was taking no sides between the Congress and the ruling Bharatiya Jata Party, Rushdie said he said he was no supporter of the Congress which had banned his book, but he believed here was something different unfolding in India today. “I am not a fan of any political party. I don’t support either side of this argument. Obviously, when ‘The Satanic Verses’ was banned it was banned by the Congress of Rajiv Gandhi and then there was the episode of Jaipur (Literary Festival) which was the last time we had to talk like this by long distance. And of course, I am not any kind of fan of that.

“But I think what’s crept into Indian life now is a degree of thuggish violence which is new. And it seems to be, I have to say, given permission by the silence of official bodies, by the silence of the Sahitya Akademi which is what so many of the writers protesting about, by the silence of the Prime Minister’s Office. Mr Modi is a very talkative gentleman, he has a lot to say on a lot of subjects and it would be very good to hear what he has to say about all this.” Rushdie was speaking on the publication of his twelfth novel “Two Years, Eight Months & Twenty Eight Nights”. (IANS)