Salman Rushdie May Visit Jaipur in Spite of Protests

Salman Rushdie, the author of controversial book 'Satanic Verses', may visit Jaipur during the Jaipur Literature Fesival scheduled to be held from 20 to 25 January. Although the Rajasthan government has raised concerns over security in the wake of the Darul Uloom Deoband's demand that Rushdie be banned from India as he had hurt sentiments of Muslims in the past, the Central Government may not be inclined towards making an actual request to Rushdie to not to visit India.

The organisers of the festival say that they stand by their invitation to Salman Rushdie, though a revised schedule of the five-day literary gathering and its sessions made no mention of Rushdie's appearance. However, the author figures in the list of speakers. Earlier the media reported, Salman Rushdie was being 'persuaded to stay away' from the five-day Jaipur Literature Festival, but according to its organisers the news was a 'fiction'.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot told the Home Minister P Chidambaram that Rushdie's visit was being resented by the local people, and could lead to trouble. After meeting the Home Minister, Ashok Gehlot told reporters "I don't have any official information about whether Rushdie is coming or not. There is no official communication to us... There is a reaction among the locals, they don't want Rushdie to come." He said his Chief Secretary was in touch with the organisers of the literature festival. "No state government will want a law and order situation. I have informed the Centre about the prevailing sentiments," Gehlot said.

The announcement of Rushdie's visit to the popular festival had invited the wrath of India's top Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband, which appealed to the government to decline the author a visa as he had hurt sentiments of Muslims in the past. Following this, Rushdie had taken to micro-blogging site Twitter to say that he did not require a visa to visit India. In Jaipur, activists of People's Union for Civil Liberties held a protest demanding that Muslim groups should withdraw their objection against Rushdie's visit. Since the responsibility falls on the Central Government to provide security to Salman Rushdie and it is not inclined to ask him to keep away from the literary fest, Rushdie's visit seems an almost certainity.