Salman Rushdie's full speech at India Today Conclave 2012
Salman Rushdie
First, I'd just like to say I'm very happy to be mentioned in the same breath as Saadat Hasan Manto, a writer that I admire enormously and who has been so well translated recently into English by Aatish. I have always revered the work of Manto and learned a lot from it. I have to thank India Today, because they have given me this opportunity, the last opportunity (Jaipur) having fallen away. They called me and suggested that we needed to put that matter right, and that this would be a way of doing it. I was really happy and grateful to be given the platform. So thank you very much to everyone involved with the magazine.
And so here I am. Two months ago, on Indian television I promised that I would be here and here I am; and you would have noticed the lack of protests or even interest from the people who were supposed to take an interest and protest. Even after various generous members of the press called them up and asked them why they were not protesting or interested. In spite of that, they didn't protest and they seem not to be interested. So that's good. Well, most of them, except for Imran Khan, and various politicians who appear suddenly to have discovered that their schedules were really crowded.
Actually, I have to thank Imran Khan for this platform, because I was going to speak at another session - a less important one. This was going to be his chance to talk to you; so I guess I have been promoted. So, I thank him for vacating the spot and allowing me to occupy it.
You know, there was a time when I would have felt very uneasy indeed to face Imran Khan… on the cricket pitch. I was never a very good player of fast bowling, or slow bowling, or any speed of bowling in between. But times change; and now it seems that it is Imran who is afraid of facing my bouncers. Maybe his hook shot is no longer what it was.
I want to make a number of points about this. One is that Imran has not been entirely straightforward. He has said that he only found out a couple of days ago, when the full programme was issued and my name was on it, that he realised he couldn't come. This is not the case. Imran was told by India Today on February the 28th, who the leading speakers at this conclave would be, and that one of those was me; and he made no negative response. He was given the list of speakers again four days later, including my name; and he made no negative response. So, it is not true to say that he was not told until the day before conclave that I was coming.
Let's be fair. Imran is a man of the old school. Maybe he doesn't understand how this new-fangled stuff called email works. Maybe he doesn't know how to open his email box and see what messages are there. Maybe he doesn't even have anybody to read it for him. Poor man. But this man wants to be the ruler of Pakistan! Maybe familiarising himself with these new-fangled technologies would be a good step on that road.
Also as Machiavelli could have informed him, if you want to lie to placate some mullahs you depend on, don't leave a paper trail that proves you lied. That's just careless.
(continued, quite good after this - can someone find it online somewhere?)
