Rushdie's 'Satanic Verses' can be imported in India as court told 1988 ban order untraceable

By Shivam Patel

India's three-decade ban on importing author Salman Rushdie's controversial 'The Satanic Verses' book has effectively been lifted after a court said the government was unable to produce the original notification that imposed the ban.

The India-born British author's novel was banned by India in 1988 after some Muslims viewed it as blasphemous. The Delhi High Court was hearing a 2019 case challenging the import ban of the book in India.

According to a Nov. 5 court order, India's government told the Delhi High Court that the import ban order "was untraceable and, therefore could not be produced."

As a result, the court said it had "no other option except to presume that no such notification exists".

"The ban has been lifted as of Nov. 5 because there is no notification," Uddyam Mukherjee, lawyer for petitioner Sandipan Khan, said.

India's interior and finance ministries did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Khan's plea said he approached the court after being told at book stores that the novel could not be sold or imported in India and then when he searched, he could not find the official import ban order on the government websites.

Even in court the government has been unable to produce the order, he said.

"None of the respondents could produce the said notification ... in fact the purported author of the said notification has also shown his helplessness in producing a copy," the Nov. 5 order noted, referring to the customs department official who drafted the order.

Rushdie's fourth fictional novel ran into a global controversy shortly after its publication in September 1988, as some Muslims saw passages about Prophet Muhammad as blasphemous.

It sparked violent demonstrations and book burnings across the Muslim world, including in India, which has the world's third largest Muslim population.

In 1989, Iran's then supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa, or religious edict, calling on Muslims to assassinate Rushdie, sending the Booker Prize-winning author into hiding for six years.

In August 2022, about 33 years after the fatwa, Rushdie was stabbed on stage during a lecture in New York, which left him blind in one eye and affected the use of one of his hands.