Celebrated author and Booker prize-winner Salman Rushdie recently opened up about the importance of free speech and its alleged limitations in several countries, including India. During the interview, Rushdie said that he was worried about the rise of Hindu nationalism in India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the portrayal of Muslims in poor light.
The remark, however, drew severe clapback on social media as netizens reminded him that he was almost killed after being stabbed 15 times on stage by a radical Islamist fanatic in upstate New York in 2022.
“I feel very worried about it. I have lots of friends in India. Everybody is extremely concerned with the attack on freedoms of journalists, writers, intellectuals, professors, et cetera,” Rushdie told Bloomberg. He added that there appeared to be a project aimed at recasting India’s identity:
"There seems to be a desire to rewrite the history of the country; essentially to say Hindus good, Muslims bad — the thing VS Naipaul once called a ‘wounded civilisation,’ the idea that India is a Hindu civilization wounded by the arrival of Muslims. That project has a lot of energy behind it."
Social media reacts: ‘What a meltdown!’
Rushdie’s remarks triggered a wave of criticism on X, where users accused him of selective outrage and hypocrisy. Many reminded the author that he was nearly killed in 2022 after being stabbed 15 times on stage by a radical Islamist fanatic in upstate New York—a brutal attack that left him blind in one eye.
One user wrote, "What a meltdown!! Listen carefully to their words. They are ‘hurt’ that their narratives spun for over a 100 years are biting the dust. Hindu renaissance is rubbing salt on their wounds." Another post read: "Sitting with an eye lost to Islamists, Salman Rushdie is worried about Hindu nationalists. He knows who to target to keep the other eye safe."
Other online commentators pointed to his long history of persecution by Islamist groups.
"Who took the eye out? A Muslim. Who burned the book and forced the ban? Muslims. Yet Salman Rushdie is suddenly very worried about growing ‘Hindu nationalism.’ Guess after losing his eye, he’s now worried about losing his head too," wrote an X user.
Rushdie’s past and the 2022 attack
The British author has been facing a decades-long struggle with threats following his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses, which led Iran to issue a fatwa calling for his death. On August 12, 2022, Rushdie was stabbed just as he was about to deliver a lecture in western New York.
The attacker, 27-year-old Hadi Matar, was later sentenced to 25 years in prison after a jury found him guilty of attempted murder and assault.
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