How many years to correct the mistake, author Salman Rushdie asks about book ban
Rushdie's remark was prompted by Chidambaram's admission that the Rajiv Gandhi government's decision to ban the controversial novel was a mistake
New Delhi: Hours after former Finance Minister P Chidambaram termed the ban on Salman Rushdie's book "Satanic Verses" as "wrong", the author tweeted asking how many more years it would take to correct the "mistake".
"This admission just took 27 years. How many more before the 'mistake' is corrected?" he said in a tweet.
Rushdie's remark was prompted by Chidambaram's admission that the Rajiv Gandhi government's decision to ban the controversial novel was a mistake.
Chidambaram, who was Minister of State Home Affairs when the ban was imposed in October 1988, had said at the Times LitFest yesterday that he had "no hesitation in saying that the ban on Salman Rushdie's book was wrong".
Read: Ban on Rushdie's book by Rajiv Gandhi govt was wrong: Chidambaram
The publication of the "Satanic Verses" in 1988 was followed by a fatwa by Iran's religious leader Ayatollah Khomenini calling for the author to be killed, forcing the author to go into hiding.
Earlier in 2012, Rushdie had to pull out from the Jaipur Literature Festival citing threats by some Muslim groups and had to even cancel a subsequent video address in the same festival.