It so happens Paddy , my dear favourite yokel , there's a little something called nuance which is a by product of a little something called intelligence - both emotional & cognitive , something as alien to you as a three piece suit in the Sahara desert or you bathing daily .
When he clearly says that India was the first nation to ban the book , it means India was the first nation to ban the book . Where does Iran come into the picture ?
IIRC , the story unfolded something like this . Khushwant Singh was the consultant for the publisher which was Penguin India if I'm not mistaken who opined that the book was incendiary & that the publishers were better off not publishing the book in India .
Whatever limited stock was imported / published here was in the process of being liquidated one way or another when a group of so called Islamic scholars ( which was a euphemism for Islamic fundamentalists )
led by Fareed Zakaria's ( he of CNN fame , remember him Paddy ) father Rafiq Zakaria also a prominent Muslim political leader from the INC along with some others raised objections .
The matter reached Delhi . The Rajiv Gandhi government always known to move with alacrity on issues of Muslim sensitivity immediately banned the book in spite of which there were violent protests as usual by the peaceful community in India leading to riots & police firing which claimed a number of lives.
In the event a similar incident with much more macabre overtones has been playing out over the last couple of months in India where on allegations of blasphemy at least 2-3 Hindus have been stabbed & beheaded by Muslims with many more attempted murders & cases of grievous assault being reported across India .
To go back to L'affaire Rushdie , It's from India that Pakistan took it's cue ( some things never change ) & they banned the book too but the protests there were even more violent claiming many more lives. In fact they even produced a film which went on to be a huge hit in Pakistan depicting Rushdie as some sort of a Bond villain with a team of crack commandos assembled by Pakistan to take him out . It's still on YT.
Into this melee in jumped Khomeini who learnt of this from Pakistan's Shia clerics & promptly announced a worldwide ban on it & a price on Rushdie's head .
Rushdie & many other noted academics & FoE supporters in the west like public intellectuals , journalists ,etc expressed anguish at the ban & the violence thus adding fuel to the fire .
The rest is history.
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