After the Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy, which includes academicians, lawyers, writers, and corporate leaders, urged fellow Muslims not to pursue their demand for a renewal of the ban on Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, another group called the Forum Against Blasphemy said that they are in favour of the continuation of the book ban.
The book, based on the life of Prophet Muhammad, the founder of Islam, was banned in 1988 in India soon after its publication as Muslims considered it offensive. The government has not officially lifted the ban but the document declaring the ban has been lost, thus making the order legally unenforceable. The loss of the document was recently brought to a court’s notice, following which many bookshops have started stocking copies of the book.The Forum Against Blasphemy said it condemned the stand taken by the ‘so-called Progressive Muslims’, the Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy.
The organisation said it believes in free speech but with reasonable restrictions. Freedom of speech without restrictions is anti-democratic and against the law of natural justice, the group said. How can anyone have the right to offend, the organisation, which includes writers, lawyers, teachers, and others as members, has asked.
The group said that it had earlier demanded a law against blasphemy in India and added that it had in the past, filed a criminal complaint against a newspaper which has published blasphemous materials against Hindu deities.
The signatories to the statement from the Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy included Shama Zaidi, documentary filmmaker; Shabnam Hashmi, Anhad; Feroz Abbas Khan, theatre and film director; Feroze Mithiborwala, co-convener, Bharat Bachao Andolan; Teesta Setalvad, Citizens for Justice and Peace; Zeenat Shaukat Ali, Wisdom Foundation; Masooma Ranalvi, We Speak Out; Zakia Soman, co-convener, Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan; Irfan Engineer, co-convener, Centre for Study of Society and Secularism, among others, asked Muslims to recall the views expressed by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (the founder of Aligarh Muslim University) a century ago when he opposed Muslims who made a bonfire of books they did not like or demanded its ban. His advice was to fight words with words.
