Knighthood of Salman Rushdie government's attempts to secularize Muslims and reward apostates. Rushdie is a hate figure across the Muslim world. This honour will have ramifications here and across the world. The awards pass across his (Blair's) desk and he could easily have blocked it, knowing it would offend Muslims everywhere." He pointed to the protests in Iran, Pakistan, and Malaysia as proof that the outcry was growing. Another protestor told reporters "We've come to demonstrate against the apostate Salman Rushdie. He has insulted Islam and the Prophet Muhammad. Salman Rushdie is the devil. We have a responsibility – he should be punished, he
The Satanic Verses to death). The book was banned in India as hate speech directed towards a specific religious group. "The Satanic Verses" consists of a frame narrative, using elements of magical realism, interlaced with a series of sub-plots that are narrated as dream visions experienced by one of the protagonists. The frame narrative, like many other stories by Rushdie, involves Indian expatriates in contemporary England. The two protagonists, Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha, are both actors of Indian Muslim background. Farishta is a Bollywood superstar who specialises in playing Hindu deities. (The character is partly based on Indian film stars Amitabh Bachchan