"It is reality that awakens possibilities, and nothing would be more perverse than to deny it. Even so, it will always be the same possibilities, either in sum or on the average, that go on repeating themselves until a man comes along who does not value the actuality over the idea. It is he who first gives the new possibilities their meaning, their directions, and he awakens them."
- Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities
"The truth will set you free. But not until it is done with you."
- David Foster Wallace
Salman Rushdie has launched a scathing attack on the Indian government for failing to protect free speech after organisers of Asia’s biggest literary festival were forced to cancel a video-linked appearance by the British author when owners of the venue in the north-west Indian city of Jaipur decided it would be unsafe.
However, in an interview with the local NDTV network, the 64-year-old author reserved his harshest words for the “Muslim groups that were so unscrupulous, and whose idea of free speech is that they are the only ones entitled to it”.
“[If] Anyone else, who they disagree with, wishes to open his mouth, they will try and stop that mouth,” Rushdie said.
“That’s what we call tyranny. It’s much worse than censorship because it comes with the threat of violence.”