Missing order raises questions about banned Salman Rushdie book

Is it legal to import Sir Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses in India?

This question has been puzzling legal experts since the Delhi High Court suggested this week that the notification banning the novel’s import – issued in 1988 – might no longer be valid, as the government couldn’t locate it.

The Satanic Verses, criticised by some Muslims as blasphemous, was banned in India shortly after its release, sparking protests worldwide. Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa in 1989, calling for Rushdie’s assassination. This forced the Indian-born Booker Prize-winning author into hiding for nearly a decade.

Although the book remains officially banned in India, some legal experts now believe it could be imported unless the government reaffirms the ban. Others, however, caution that practical obstacles may still exist.

The ban on the book came under scrutiny after Sandipan Khan, a resident of West Bengal state, tried to buy the book but learnt that it was not published in India nor could it be imported.

In 2017, he filed a Right to Information (RTI) request for the official notification banning the book’s import, but was sent through a series of departments without finding it.

In 2019, Khan took the matter to the Delhi High Court, arguing that the ban impacted his freedom to read.

Over five years, government departments repeatedly failed to produce the notification, despite customs having similar records from as far back as 1968.

Finally, on 5 November, the court declared it had no option but to “presume” that no such ban notification exists and therefore couldn’t assess its validity.

The case raises a perplexing question: is a notification valid if no copy of it can be found?

The simple answer is, we don’t yet.

The court has not clarified if the book could be accessed in India but advised Mr Khan to pursue any legal options to obtain it.

Uddyam Mukherjee, Mr Khan’s lawyer, told the BBC that federal departments couldn’t provide a clear answer either, when asked by the court.

“I have never come across a situation like this,” said Madan Lokur, a former judge of the Supreme Court.

If the notification is not found then “technically no ban exists” and the book can be imported.

“However, the government may pass a fresh notification [banning the book’s import],” Mr Lokur added, since the court has not declared the ban to be unconstitutional, but only said that the notification is presumed to not exist.

Mr Mukherjee argued that the book could now be imported “as there is no legal impediment” against the book.

However, some legal experts disagree.

Raju Ramachandran, a senior lawyer, found it a “little extreme” to say that the book can be imported.

“All that the high court says is that this particular petition has become infructuous [invalid] since the notification could not be found,” he said. “It has not given the right to the petitioner to import the book.”

Senior lawyer Sanjay Hegde said the book could have been published in India if “someone was brave enough to print it” as only its import was banned, not its publication.

“But after all the brouhaha, nobody wanted to print it in India.”

In 2012, the government of Rajasthan state sought the arrest of four Indian authors – Hari Kunzru, Ruchir Joshi, Amitava Kumar and Jeet Thayil – after they downloaded a few passages from the Satanic Verses and read them out at a literary festival in the city.

At the time, many legal experts were of the opinion that downloading a book whose import had been banned could not be considered a crime. But online copies of the book have been hard to find in India.

Rushdie, 76, continues to face threats over his outspoken views on Islam.

In 2022, he lost an eye and spent six weeks in hospital after being stabbed up to 10 times on stage at an event in New York state. The suspect, Hadi Matar, has been charged with attempted murder.

In his recent memoir, the writer has criticised the response to his book, noting that “no properly authorised body [in India] had reviewed the book, nor was there any semblance of a judicial process”.