'Worried Modi will run a bully government', says Salman Rushdie

"In contemporary India, all these problems exist and they are getting worse. The attack on literary, scholarly and artistic freedom have gathered force" ever since his book the Satanic Verses was banned, he said.

"This already lamentable state of affairs looks likely to become much worse if it, as seems likely, seems probable, the election results bring to power the Hindu Nationalist BJP so that the highly divisive figure of Narendra Modi, a hardliner's hardliner, becomes India's next Prime Minister," he added.  

Last month, Rushdie and sculptor Anish Kapoor were among a group of Indian-origin writers, artists and lawyers who had signed an open letter "worrying about Modi's rise to power".  

Rushdie said following the letter, "attacks on us in Indian social media has been relentless and paradoxically has validated our fears".

"We are worried about the arrival of a bullying, intolerant new regime and here are its early outriders - menacing, nasty and vengeful. There will not be less of this after a Modi victory," Rushdie added.

Rushdie said free speech and religious freedom in India are increasingly coming under attack and writers and artists are being targetted for their work just because a section of the population deems it offensive.

Citing the examples of the banning of Wendy Doniger's book on Hindus and M F Husain's exile from India for his art works, Rushdie said episodes of this sort are multiplying every week and day and the authorities have "failed lamentably" in their duty to protect free speech rights.

"The climate of fear that has consequently being created is such that the hooligans' and censors' work is now often done for them by the collapse of those who ought to be free speeche defenders".

"India is in the danger of betraying the legacy of its founding fathers and greatest artists like Rabindranath Tagore," Rushdie said, quoting from the Nobel laureate's iconic work 'Where the mind is without fear'.