Knife is as much a weapon as a thought

Sudhirendar Sharma

Sudhirendar Sharma

35 years ago, Iran's religious and political leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against Indian-born British author Salman Rushdie in February 1989, ordering Muslims to kill him after being outraged by Rushdie's popular novel 'Satanic Verses'. And under the same fatwa, a 24-year-old man fatally attacked Rushdie with a knife during a public lecture in New York in August 2022.

The offensive comments raised on 'Satanic Verses' have their own history, but the unique thing is that it all happened a decade before the young man was born and he had read maybe two pages of the novel by the time he committed the crime. In this attack, Rushdie sustained 10-15 stab wounds on the shoulder, chest and face, and lost one of his eyes. Rushdie has compiled his grief and thoughts in a recently published beautiful book 'Knife - Meditations After an Attempted Murder'. This is the context of this article and let the readers be warned that this article is not a review of the above book.

Before discussing Rushdie's book, I think it is important to understand the difference between 'believing' and 'knowing'. Why did that young man 'assume' without 'knowing' that Rushdie had made derogatory comments against his religion in the book? अज तो भायर हुम राजाई से जे के है के की काल में बिना जाने जाना है है है But if you think a little deeply, this method was started by 'Dharma' centuries ago and in all religions without knowing it became like a kind of religious 'ritual' and it is even today. It was part of this method to simply 'accept' the stereotypes without 'knowing' them. That young man who attacked Rushdie only carried out years of hatred 'accepted' and 'stored' by society. The hero of Dostoevsky's classic novel 'Crime and Punishment' also believed that some crimes are justified. It is another matter that after the murder, the protagonist remains a victim of delusion, paranoia, and hatred. A thought or feeling that one does not feel is not less than a crime.

In the hall where Salman Rushdie was attacked, the question raised by the audience later is that Rushdie himself has asked himself what happened that he saw the attacker coming towards him with a knife but still Rushdie Can't do anything in self-defense? Rushdie says that violence is the intense power to destroy reality in which rational thought has no place. In the environment of fear and anxiety, right thinking or conscience disappears somewhere.

The same thing happened in that attack. By the time Hosh Bhalata 'knife' had followed his religion. It is amazing that the (knife) that causes hatred does not become a subject of hatred, because if this knife were in the hands of a doctor, it would be 'Jandeva' and not 'killer', because the doctor's state of mind is to give life. Thoughts are converted into actions by the thought of mind-word-action, and when the mind is filled with hatred, one can only imagine how the action will be. That young man could not extricate himself from the cycle of mind-word-action. 'Believing' so dominated 'knowing' that the knife did what it was told.

After losing an eye in this violent incident, Rushdie got a chance to re-understand the two-eyed society and he had the self-awareness to see and show the 'Knife' as an idea more than a weapon. In many ways Rushdie has written the autobiography of the knife – the knife is as much a 'weapon' as an 'idea'. The knife's 'closeness to the body' makes it feel 'own'. A knife itself is not a piece of metal if there is no 'edge' in it. After this incident, Rushdie realized that he himself was using literature as a sharp knife. The 'edge' from this accident should be more rapid and meaningful, these possibilities cannot be ruled out.

A knife cuts cakes and vegetables, opens bottles and bodies. 9/11 used the airplane like a knife to cut the twin towers. Anything can become a knife if the edge is sharp, but a knife is felt when it cuts what we often don't want to see cut. Language is also a knife that can cut ideologically without cutting anything. The knife is also a painful experience that brings life closer to new experiences. Knives have the power to take life, but they also have the amazing power to give life, as we have discussed above about the doctor's hand knife or you can put the farmer's scythe knife in the same category as our Harvests crops for food supply.

One thing is certain that the knife has given Salman Rushdie a new identity in which the knife plays a central role and he will now have to live with this new identity. 'Knife' is a challenge but they also have a chance to stay relevant without repeating themselves! It was only a matter of a genius writer like Rushdie that he made positive use of this unfortunate murderous attack on him and took a deep look at the current trends in the present society which you can call a sociological or political look and psychological and philosophical too!

(Dr. Sudhirendar Sharma is a writer and researcher specializing in development issues. He is based in New Delhi, India.)

First published in www.RaagDelhi.com, uploaded on May 8, 2024