Salman Rushdie has become the focus of a renewed debate in India after comments in a recent PBS interview in which he discussed Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the 2002 Gujarat riots and the growing influence of Hindu nationalism among Indian Americans.
The remarks have drawn attention partly because of the writer’s extraordinary personal history with religious extremism. His novel The Satanic Verses was banned in India in 1988, and in 1989 Iran’s then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for his death. Decades later, the author was attacked at a literary event in New York in August 2022 and lost sight in his right eye.
Against that background, his latest comments have prompted a broader discussion about the consistency with which religious extremism and political nationalism are judged. The issue is not simply whether criticism of the Indian government is legitimate—it plainly is—but how public figures frame competing political and religious movements.
In the PBS interview, Rushdie was asked about remarks by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who had described Modi as a “war criminal” in connection with the Gujarat violence. Salman Rushdie did not adopt that exact description. He acknowledged that the events did not constitute a war, but said he believed Modi was “partly responsible” for some of the violence and described the Prime Minister as having “a very brutal side,” according to the interview transcript.
The comments have reopened an old and sensitive political argument. The Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team’s findings and subsequent judicial proceedings have been central to the legal history surrounding allegations against Modi. Salman Rushdie’s questioning of that process therefore became a significant part of the reaction to the interview, with supporters of the Prime Minister arguing that political judgments should not override institutional findings.
The conversation then moved toward the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its influence among Indian Americans. Salman Rushdie said he believed many Hindu Indian Americans were attracted to Hindu nationalist ideas and compared that phenomenon with the historical support some Irish Americans gave to the Irish Republican Army. The comparison itself has since generated criticism, with commentators arguing that the RSS and IRA emerged from very different historical, ideological and political circumstances.
At the same time, criticism of Hindu nationalism is hardly confined to one writer. Across India and abroad, academics, journalists, political activists and civil-society groups have debated the relationship between Hindutva, Indian democracy, minority rights and the expanding political influence of the BJP. Recent international attention surrounding RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s overseas appearances has further intensified that debate.
Salman Rushdie’s critics argue that his personal experience with Islamist threats makes his emphasis on Hindu nationalism appear selective. His defenders, however, can reasonably point out that surviving religious extremism does not oblige a writer to adopt a fixed political position for the rest of his life. A person can oppose Islamist violence and simultaneously criticize Hindu nationalism, the BJP government or any other political movement.
That distinction is important because Salman Rushdie’s history is unusually complex. He has spent much of his adult life confronting threats to free expression, first because of The Satanic Verses and later through the 2022 attack. His public career has therefore made him a prominent symbol in debates over censorship, religious intolerance and artistic freedom.
The author’s latest intervention is consequently likely to be judged less as an isolated political comment and more as part of a long-running argument over how societies respond when religion and politics become intertwined. His remarks may satisfy some audiences and anger others, but they also underline a larger democratic principle: criticism of governments, political movements and religious ideologies must remain open to scrutiny, regardless of who makes it.
For India, the debate is especially charged because questions surrounding secularism, religious identity, nationalism and minority rights remain deeply contested. The challenge is to distinguish legitimate political disagreement from attempts to silence opposing views. Salman Rushdie may have strong opinions about India’s political direction, but those opinions, like those of his critics, ultimately belong in an open public debate where evidence, history and institutional decisions can be examined rather than simply accepted or rejected. in discourse.
