India a more intolerant country today, than when it first gained independence? Author Salman Rushdie says yes it is. Speaking to NDTV, just ahead of the launch of his memoirs on the Fatwa years, Mr Rushdie says the ban on 'Satanic Verses' that India was the first country in the world to ban the book and that set the tone. Since then, the State has failed to protect artistes or free speech. From attacks on art galleries to recent sedition cases against cartoonists, Mr Rushdie says India is no longer Nehur's country. Nehru was a liberal, he says, who always argued against government censorship.