Column | The ban order on Salman Rushdie’s book might have gone missing, but its implications live on

St. Anthony, the patron saint of lost things, helps the author navigate through misplaced items and a lost government order.

St. Anthony, the patron saint of lost things, should be my personal saint. I misplace everything constantly—my wallet, phone, keys.

On the eve of a foreign trip, I have been known to turn the house upside down looking for my passport. As the Uber pulls up, I am routinely running room to room looking for my keys. I left my laptop at the airport baggage X-ray and boarded my flight.

To this day, as I leave the house, my mother recites “Key? Wallet? Phone?” like a mantra. So it feels like a great relief to realise that I am not the only person who misplaces important things.

The government of India cannot find 405/12/88-CUS-III — its 1988 order banning the import of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. Sandipan Khan of West Bengal tried to buy the book and discovered it was neither published in India nor could it be imported.

His RTI in 2017 led to a court case in 2019. For five years, th e government looked but it could not find the original order although, according to the BBC, the Customs department had similar records dating back to 1968.

Sadly, there is no Hindu god or goddess tasked with finding lost things. The order stayed stubbornly unfound and the judge ruled the ban on the import of the book was thus unfounded.

Author Rushdie must surely appreciate the irony. The ban that became Khattam-Shud, the arch enemy of stories, even of language itself, the Prince of Silence and the Foe of Speech, has itself been misplaced.