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Salman Rushdie signed a letter expressing “grave concerns about the rapidly worsening situation for human rights in India” and contributed a short piece to a collection about India at 75 before he was stabbed on stage at an event in New York.
The writer was one of 102 signatories to the PEN America letter to Droupadi Murmu, who has served as India’s president since July. The letter, dated 14 August, was sent to coincide with the 75th anniversary on 15 August of India’s independence from British rule.
The letter says: “We write to express our grave concern regarding the myriad threats to free expression and other core rights that have been building steadily in recent years, since the Bharatiya Janata party-led government has come to power.
“We urge you to support the democratic ideals promoting and protecting free expression in the spirit of India’s independence, and restore India’s reputation as an inclusive, secular, multi-ethnic and -religious democracy where writers can express dissenting or critical views without threat of detention, investigation, physical attacks or retaliation.”
Other writers who signed the letter include Ayad Akhtar, Kiran Desai, JM Coetzee, Elif Shafak, Colm Tóibín and Anne Tyler.
Rushdie, who was born in India, remains in hospital after Friday’s attack at a literary festival, but has been removed from a ventilator. The man suspected of attacking him, Hadi Matar, pleaded not guilty at the weekend to charges of attempted murder and assault at a brief court appearance where he was denied bail.
In addition to signing the letter, Rushdie also contributed to PEN America’s India at 75, a collection of short writings by authors from India and the Indian diaspora. The collection asked writers to express what they felt in response to “an acceleration of threats against free speech, academic freedom and digital rights, and an uptick in online trolling and harassment” since the 2014 Indian election.
The collection records “ideas of what India was and ought to be, and what it has become”.
Rushdie’s contribution was written before the attack on him, said PEN America.
In the short piece, Rushdie reflects on the collective history of “Hindustan Humara”, translated as “our India”, when “we celebrated one another’s festivals, and believed, or almost believed, that all of the land’s multifariousness belonged to all of us”.
But, he goes on to write, that “dream of fellowship and liberty is dead, or close to death” and, calling on imagery from JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, “the Ruling Ring – one might say –has been forged in the fire of an Indian Mount Doom”.
Other writers in the India at 75 collection include Angela Saini, Hari Kunzru and Preti Taneja.
Rushdie’s words, written before last week’s attack in New York, are aired in a new anthology alongside other leading authors
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2...ished-in-pen-anthology?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
The writer was one of 102 signatories to the PEN America letter to Droupadi Murmu, who has served as India’s president since July. The letter, dated 14 August, was sent to coincide with the 75th anniversary on 15 August of India’s independence from British rule.
The letter says: “We write to express our grave concern regarding the myriad threats to free expression and other core rights that have been building steadily in recent years, since the Bharatiya Janata party-led government has come to power.
“We urge you to support the democratic ideals promoting and protecting free expression in the spirit of India’s independence, and restore India’s reputation as an inclusive, secular, multi-ethnic and -religious democracy where writers can express dissenting or critical views without threat of detention, investigation, physical attacks or retaliation.”
Other writers who signed the letter include Ayad Akhtar, Kiran Desai, JM Coetzee, Elif Shafak, Colm Tóibín and Anne Tyler.
Rushdie, who was born in India, remains in hospital after Friday’s attack at a literary festival, but has been removed from a ventilator. The man suspected of attacking him, Hadi Matar, pleaded not guilty at the weekend to charges of attempted murder and assault at a brief court appearance where he was denied bail.
In addition to signing the letter, Rushdie also contributed to PEN America’s India at 75, a collection of short writings by authors from India and the Indian diaspora. The collection asked writers to express what they felt in response to “an acceleration of threats against free speech, academic freedom and digital rights, and an uptick in online trolling and harassment” since the 2014 Indian election.
The collection records “ideas of what India was and ought to be, and what it has become”.
Rushdie’s contribution was written before the attack on him, said PEN America.
In the short piece, Rushdie reflects on the collective history of “Hindustan Humara”, translated as “our India”, when “we celebrated one another’s festivals, and believed, or almost believed, that all of the land’s multifariousness belonged to all of us”.
But, he goes on to write, that “dream of fellowship and liberty is dead, or close to death” and, calling on imagery from JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, “the Ruling Ring – one might say –has been forged in the fire of an Indian Mount Doom”.
Other writers in the India at 75 collection include Angela Saini, Hari Kunzru and Preti Taneja.
Rushdie’s words, written before last week’s attack in New York, are aired in a new anthology alongside other leading authors
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2...ished-in-pen-anthology?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
