Rushdie on Satanic Verses-India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

British-Indian author Salman Rushdie has said that books like his controversial 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses, cannot be published today because of the 'climate of fear and nervousness' that exists. Rushdie said the banning of his book in many countries and the subsequent threats on his life had created a 'long-term chilling effect'. "A book which was critical of Islam would be difficult to be published now," the BBC quoted him, as saying. According to the report, Rushdie stressed that the only way to solve the issue was for publishers to 'be braver'. "The only way of living in a free society is to feel that you have the right to say and do stuff," he said. Rushdie said many who had arranged protests against him have told newspapers that they thought their actions had been a mistake. "Some of them seemed to accept the free speech argument and understood if they had the right to say what they felt, it was wrong to prevent people who felt differently from having their say," the report quoted him, as saying. "If that's right, then maybe we can emerge from a climate of fear," he added.

Satanic Verses type of books can't be published in a climate of fear: Rushdie