World - Rushdie,India & The Booker Prize

I’ve always been intrigued why Salman Rushdie is routinely described as an “Indian” writer and nobody ever raises an eyebrow.

India-born, yes. But Indian?

After Britain, where he has lived since he was 14 and which in many ways made him what he is today, if there is a country which has greater claim on him than India it should, surely, be Pakistan. Although Rushdie was born in India and spent his early childhood in Bombay, his family moved to Pakistan when he was only seven. At 14, he came to Britain and studied first at Rugby School and then at Cambridge University.

As Premen Addy, the London-based Indian academic and journalist pointed out in an article in The Hindu Business Line (April 9, 2002) when Mr. Rushdie acquired a British passport he “surrendered a Pakistani, not an Indian, passport.”
Mr. Rushdie still has links with Pakistan through his family though he has never any made any secret of his own contempt for that country. In his book Step Across This Line he wrote that “the desire to get out of Pakistan, even temporarily, is one with which many people will sympathise.” The feeling is mutual for reasons which are well-known (his views on Islamic fundamentalism, Satanic Verses, et al) but that doesn’t explain why Pakistan should let India appropriate one of the sub-continent’s greatest living writers.
One would have expected Pakistan to fight over Mr. Rushdie, disputed India’s claim on him. But after the row over Satanic Verses it became politically convenient for the Pakistani establishment to disown him. And, probably, because he was disowned by Pakistan, India so happily embraced him ignoring his record of India-bashing that included a series of documentaries he made for British television attacking India on how it treated its minorities; and his scathing criticism of the Rajiv Gandhi government for banning Satanic Verses. Perhaps it is a somewhat cynical interpretation of the India- Rushdie “love-in” but is there any other obvious explanation? Except, of course, that it always helps to claim a famous name as our own.

If I were a Pakistani I would feel deprived but surprisingly I’ve seldom heard a Pakistani lament how they wished Mr. Rushdie was theirs. The cliché, of course, is that writers know no boundaries (they belong to the whole world, etc) but great literary figures are also the stuff that make a nation more than just a sum of its population and material wealth. Great nations flaunt their writers as a badge of honour. But there are, of course, exceptions. Pakistan, for instance?
While on Mr. Rushdie, it seems he is set to run away with another Booker prize, having recently bagged the Best of Bookers for Midnight’s Children — a book which won him a Booker in 1981 and the Booker of Bookers in 1993. And now — according to the bookies — he seems on course to win this year’s Booker Prize for The Enchantress of Florence. If he does get it, it would be his fourth Booker making one wonder if we’re headed for a Rushdie-Booker fatigue.

I know it is not a fashionable or democratic thing to say but might it not be a good idea — for the sake of fairness — to consider putting a cap on the number of times a writer can get a Booker? The view that the best book should win, irrespective of who has written it, is a purist one and presumes that the “best” always necessarily wins. After all, judging is a very subjective process and the stature of a writer does influence the choice. There are judges who do get intimidated by a high-profile contender.
But there’s a broader point. What’s the function of a literary prize like Booker? Is it simply to put one more stamp of approval on an already recognised writer? Or is to discover, and help ordinary readers discover new exciting works? An award to The Enchantress of Florence is not likely to make a great deal of difference to its critical or commercial success. But a less widely-known novel like Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland will benefit hugely, if it were to win the prize. There are some good books on the longlist but when pitted against Rushdie they might struggle to impress the judges.

I am not arguing for shutting out anybody but simply raising the question whether it makes sense to keep on honouring writers whose works are read (and sell) anyway. I don’t read Rushdie or Ian McEwan because they have won another Booker. But, there are writers I am not familiar with and one of the ways of discovering them is if they get a prestigious literary award. And that, I presume, is true of most ordinary (admittedly lazy) readers. I know social engineering has a bad ring about it, but if it helps discover more writers and new exciting works it’s worth it.
Meanwhile, the Booker long list has already caused a controversy with one leading independent British publishing house Canongate whose Life of Pi by Yaan Martel won a Booker in 2002 launching a public attack on the jury for overlooking its entry, Helen Garner’s The Spare Room. Judges have also been criticised for leaving out several heavyweight contenders, including Doris Lessing and Hanif Kureishi, and at least one prominent critic has slammed them for not including any novel about “modern-day” Britain !