Rushdie hopes for new relationship with India

Rushdie hopes for new relationship with India

NEW DELHI (AP): On his first visit to India in 12 years, author Salman Rushdie said he hoped to begin a new relationship with the country of his birth, where his controversial book Satanic Verses was banned following protests by Muslims across the world.

"This long rift between India and myself is now completely over. I hope we can just turn the page and begin a new page," Rushdie told reporters Friday.

Rushdie went into hiding in Europe and London after Muslim extremists issued a religious edict calling for his death for alleged blasphemy.

Bodyguards surrounded Rushdie and photographers mobbed him as he walked into a New Delhi hotel where the Commonwealth Writer's Prize was announced.

Rushdie, a contender for the prize given to writers from the United Kingdom and its former colonies, did not win. The prize for best book went to J.M. Coetzee of South Africa for Disgrace. The prize for best first book went to Jeffrey Moore of Canada for Prisoner in a Red Rose Chain.

Small demonstrations by Muslim organizations were held in New Delhi to protest the Indian government's decision to grant Rushdie a visa.

"My message to Indian Muslims is that I've never been their enemy and if they read my book, they would see that," he said.

Rushdie said he would like the ban on Satanic Verses to be lifted but had not sought a meeting with any government official and neither had he been offered one.

"I'm just here to restore a broken connection. I'm here as a writer among writers for a literary event and as an Indian among Indians," he said.

Rushdie has been in India for eight days with his 20-year-old son and said he had visited his house at Solan in the Simla Hills and taken trips to Agra and Fatehpur Sikri.

In an interview with BBC Radio, Rushdie said that what he had most enjoyed was being able to visit major tourist attractions - such as the Taj Mahal - without going in disguise.