Never Out of Print: The Rupa Story; Rajen Mehra, Rupa, ₹500.
In August 2022, Salman Rushdie was attacked while attending a public event on literature. In this excerpt from Never Out of Print: The Rupa Story, Rajen Mehra, chairman of Rupa Publications and Aleph Book Company, recalls his long association with the writer and his books.
My association with and admiration for Salman Rushdie as a writer dates back to the early 1980s. One day, during this time, I received a rather unusual Christmas gift from my friend Peter Hensen of Collins. It was unusual because Peter would usually just send a Christmas card. When I opened the package, I found a substantial hardbound book entitled Midnight’s Children. When I finally put the book down, having read it almost continuously over a few days, I was amazed by its style and content. It was about a boy who is born at the stroke of midnight on 15 August 1947; as a result, the newborn child’s destiny was linked with the destiny of the newly independent nation. It is a fantastic piece of magic realism in which the history of a nation is beautifully embedded into the life and times of its main character, Saleem Sinai. The book was published in paperback by Picador, and I immediately acquired the rights to exclusively distribute the book in India. Midnight’s Children won the Booker Prize that year and the rest, as the cliche goes, is history.
Fame and glory
After Midnight’s Children came Shame, which was a political satire on Pakistan. Pan-Picador licensed its publishing to us in India. My wife Kaminee and I went to London in 1983 to seal the deal with Picador’s publisher, Sonny Mehta. Sonny gave Salman a call and the author turned up within 10 minutes, clad in a kurta and pyjama.
Back in India, I arranged a book discussion on Shame and Midnight’s Children at the IIC with Rushdie in attendance. Khushwant Singh chaired the meet and Ravi Dayal was the keynote speaker. There was a stampede to meet the author at this and a host of other events. Salman was elated by the reception he received wherever he went in the country.
A few years later, Penguin India received the manuscript of The Satanic Verses. Khushwant Singh, the literary adviser to the firm, and Zamir Ansari, who was in charge of sales and marketing, were both apprehensive about the reception of the book, as there were passages potentially offensive to orthodox Muslims. In fact, Khushwant Singh advised Penguin India against publishing the book in India. Zamir, then, sent me the manuscript. As I didn’t feel qualified to comment on whether or not it could be considered offensive, I sent it to a couple of Muslim friends, scholars and intellectuals, whose opinions I respected. They didn’t think there was anything wrong with the book, and we imported 500 copies of The Satanic Verses. The book didn’t take off immediately — we did not sell even 30 copies on day one.
Protest, and aftermath
Then, Syed Shahabuddin, an MP from Bihar and the editor of the monthly magazine Muslim India, lodged a complaint about the contents of the book and appealed to the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to ban it immediately. Shahabuddin had not read the book and neither had Home Minister Buta Singh who would have to act on the matter. On 5 October [1988], around 5 pm, my dear friend Tejeshwar Singh, the news reader from Doordarshan and publisher of Sage Publications, called me and said, “Be careful, the book might get banned.” At 9 pm, the very same day on Doordarshan news, Tejeshwar Singh announced, “The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie has been banned in India.”
Our country was the first to ban the book. I had stocks left with me and as per the banning orders, which interestingly came from the Ministry of Finance, the book could not be imported under Section 11 of the Customs Act. Technically, I could still sell it and liquidate my current stock. The next morning, I put the rest of the books in the boot of my Ambassador car, fearing that they might be damaged by fanatics if displayed in the showroom. Sham Lal, the editor of The Times of India, telephoned me for a copy. Soon, others followed. My phone line wouldn’t stop ringing. A list of buyers was compiled and my driver went around the city delivering copies of the book to customers.
By evening, 400 copies were sold. According to the initial arrangement I had with the original publisher, we’d agreed to import 10,000 copies of the paperback edition. I had to now say no.
Soon after, Ayatollah Khomeini issues a fatwa against Salman and overnight, the situation worsened to the extent that Salman had to go into hiding, fearing for his life. But his courage and fortitude were noteworthy. A lesser author’s creative instincts would have been paralysed, but Salman was made of sterner stuff — while contending with death threats and hatred, he wrote a delightful book Haroun and the Sea of Stories for his son Zafar. The book was an absolute delight.
Excerpted with permission from Rupa.
