Speaking at the first Kolkata Literary Meet, organised as a part of the 36th Kolkata Book Fair, Seth said it was ironic that an event just a few days before the Republic Day went on to prove that everything it celebrates about the country was wrong. “Where is liberty today? Yes, the liberty of faith and worship is alive and kicking. But what about the liberty of thought, expression and belief? Don’t they equally make up who we are and what constitutes us as a nation?”

He said it was ironic that on Republic Day he was having to refer to a “disgraceful exhibition of suppression of the mind and the heart”. Without naming Rushdie or The Satanic Verses, Seth noted how the same people who are being censured at the Jaipur Literature Festival had visited Jaipur five years back and faced no protests then.

He said the incident reeked of electoral politics with the elections round the corner. “One of the most prominent authors of our time was not allowed to make an appearance at the literary festival and, in the strangest manner, was not even allowed to appear as an image on a screen,” he said. “No one was forced to hear him, he was not even going to talk about a work he had written 20 years ago when it had proved to be controversial.”

“People are no fools. Everyone knows it. The whole affair was started because of power, politics and misuse of religion,” he said, adding that the government buckled under the pressure and “enforced” disgrace.