The Satanic Verses (Salman Rushdie)

The Satanic Verses is no longer banned in India. India was the first country to ban Salman Rushdie’s novel, barring its import on 5 October 1988, only weeks after it was published. The ban lasted 36 years. It ended in November 2024 for an unusual reason: the government could not find the order that created it.

What the 1988 ban covered

The ban was imposed through a customs notification under the Customs Act, 1962, which allows the government to stop goods coming into the country. It did not technically ban writing, owning or publishing the book inside India, but no Indian publisher would print it after the riots and protests the novel caused. Many Muslims saw the book as blasphemous, and a few months later Iran’s supreme leader issued a death decree against Rushdie, which is why the book is still banned in Iran.

The 2019 court case

In 2019, a reader named Sandipan Khan went to the Delhi High Court because he could not import the book. He challenged the 1988 notification. Over the next five years, the customs authorities repeatedly asked for more time to find it. They never did. On 5 November 2024, the court said it had “no other option except to presume that no such notification exists”, and closed the case. As LiveLaw noted, the court never ruled on whether the ban was right. It simply had nothing to examine.

Can you buy The Satanic Verses in India now?

Yes. With the notification presumed not to exist, imports are allowed, and Delhi bookshop Bahrisons put copies on its shelves in December 2024.

The case is a rare example of a ban disappearing through paperwork rather than politics. Britain’s attempt to stop the MI5 memoir Spycatcher ended in court too. For more, see our banned books list or the India page.