M.F.HUSSAIN spent his last years of his colourful life in exile, forced out of his country by right-wing Hindu fundamentalist forces who took offence at some of his paintings. In 2010, the staging of Sara by Mahesh Dattani faced resistance from the Shiv Sena fundamentalists in Mumbai. Taslima Nasreen was not given shelter in West Bengal by the Buddhadev Bhattacharya government on the grounds of deteriorating law and order situation and the writer’s safety.

The books of Naguib Mahfouz, the Egyptian writer were banned in many Arab countries until he won the Nobel Prize. Like many Egyptian writers and intellectuals, he also suffered the consequence of his outspoken support for Sadat's Camp David peace treaty with Israel in 1978. He called Ayatollah Khomeini a ‘terrorist’. Mahfouz was on an Islamic fundamentalist "death list". He defended Salman Rushdie, the Booker Prize winning novelist of Indian origin after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini condemned Rushdie to death in 1989. Rushdie had been under forced confinement for years after the publication of The Satanic Verses for alleged blasphemy.

A section of Muslims felt offended as they felt that the writer had in his writings insulted Prophet Mohammad. The largest Literary Festival of Asia which is going to be held at Jaipur this year from Jan 20-24 brought again to focus the age old controversy: Should the artists and writers succumb to the pressure of the fundamentalists? The question may sound a little harsh, because this time the Rajasthan government itself got involved in the issue of pressurizing the organisers to dissuade Salman Rushdie from visiting the festival where he was scheduled to speak on Jan 20 and 21.

Fundamentalists and politicians of the ruling party of Rajasthan are active in focusing the security risk of Rushdie. On the plea of his safety and the violence that may erupt on his arrival at Jaipur, they are now trying to stop him fro coming to the literary festival, which is the largest literary event of  India and Asia.

The reaction seems to be unprecedented this time because in 2007 Rushdie had attended the same literary festival at Jaipur. The question of law and order situation has been raised pertinently, according to some Muslims as about 13 percent of India's 1.2 billion people in India are Muslims. The ban that is imposed on Rushdie cannot be said to be the voice of all Muslims of India or the whole world. A large number of Muslim intellectuals are still openly against this kind of fatwa against the literary tycoon. The Fatwa was eased in 1998 for a short period. The British Indian author's presence at Jaipur might make the festival grand and spectacular, but if he is finally not allowed to come, frustration might settle in by degrees. Fundamentalists have throttled the voice of artistic freedom in this dastardly manner.

It is true that sentiments of each community and caste are important in India and Rushdie’s visit might offend some section of  Indians. Rushdie was born in India but now he is a British citizen and has lived in the UK for most of his life. In recent years, he has made many private visits to India. He was due to deliver speech on January 20 -21. Last time in 2007, when he attended the same festival, everything happened without any outrage visible anywhere, any anger expressed and any protest registered. But this time outraged Muslim scholars reacted sharply for some unknown reasons. The organisers are pressurized by the Rajasthan government itself to ask Rushdie to call off his visit. Muslims constitute nearly 18 percent of voters in Rajasthan. This may be one of the reasons why the ruling party of the state does not want to antagonize the Muslim community. According to them Rushdie’s visit may incite violence and crime. The most uncivilized part is the announcement of cash reward for hurling slippers at Rushdie when he would visit India. Hurling slippers at a VIP is now less an offence and more a palatable TV show. But when an artist's freedom is curbed in this way by the fundamentalist fatwa, it creates genuine concern about the sanity of that society.