Twenty-seven years after the then Rajiv Gandhi government banned Salman Rushdie's controversial novel 'The Satanic Verses', former Finance Minister P Chidambaram today said it was "wrong."
"I have no hesitation in saying that the ban on Salman Rushdie's book was wrong," Mr Chidambaram said speaking at the Times LitFest in Delhi.
Mr Rushdie reacted sharply to the former union minister's statement. "This admission just took 27 years. How many before the 'mistake' is corrected?," Mr Rushdie said in a tweet.
The ban on "Satanic Verses" in 1988 was followed by a 'fatwa' (decree) by Iran's religious leader Ayatollah Khomenini. In 2012, the author had to pull out from the Jaipur Literature Festival citing threats by some Muslim groups.
"Indira Gandhi herself admitted in 1980 that the Emergency was wrong and, if elected to power, she would never impose the Emergency. People believed her and elected her to power again," he said.
"If you had asked me 20 years ago, I would have told you the same thing," he said when asked why it took him so many years to reach such a conclusion.
"What is of profound concern to me is the apparent rise of intolerance. Khap panchayats today are more visible and more brazen in dispensing Kangaroo justice. There is rush of bans. Ban jeans, ban authors, ban food, ban artist, ban travel, ban NGO," he said.
Noting that the answer to "a bad idea is good idea not ban idea", Mr Chidambaram said," the concept of liberty is expanding universally. Not all ideas will be accepted but every idea deserves its own space and every idea deserves to be expressed."
"Illiberal zealots believe that the State is on their side. Illiberal zealots also believe that if they gather sufficient number they will be the State and their word will be the law," he said.
He also said those who believe in democracy and liberalism must stand up and protest.
He said the enforcement of Constitutional provisions "in letter and spirit" will help curb illiberal tendencies.
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