As law students, we are constantly asked to focus on the interconnectedness between law, literature, and society. Blame it either on the educational system’s failure to equip students with independent thinking, or my own limitations, but as a student, it was impossible for me to connect society with literature—until I picked up ‘Languages of Truth’ by Salman Rushdie.

Rushdie is a man who defies a single label. He has written six novels, a memoir and a children’s book. He is the founding member of the PEN World Voices Festival in New York. Yet he is best known for his fifth book, ‘The Satanic Verses’, which prompted a fatwa (a religious ruling or opinion issued by an Islamic scholar of mufti)(...) against him in 1989 and was subsequently banned in several countries.

Rushdie unpacks this reality in his latest book, ‘Languages of Truth’. He says that when any work of literature is censored, it gets branded as immoral or pornographic. This overlooks the actual creativity of the art. In a way, censorship starts defining the art. For example, literary works like Lady Chatterley’s Lover or A Clockwork Orange are remembered by many as “obscene” rather than for their core artistic value.

Gathering pieces written between 2003 and 2020, including several never previously in print, ‘Languages of Truth’ chronicles a period of momentous cultural shifts. Here, Rushdie engages with questions of truth, freedom, censorship and art.

Through his essays, he opens the door for the reader to enter into literary wonderment. The more one flips through the pages, the more one understands that being a writer comes with the responsibility of knowing the world, both objectively and subjectively. To see the world as it is, according to Rushdie, stands as one of the major challenges of our time. To know the world is to see the truth. Here, he asserts truth as fragile, always contested and argues that it can be defended only through literature and art. For truth is ever-changing.

Rushdie presents strong arguments about how truth has never been absolute. It has always been shaped by power and perspective. For example, the 1857 Indian uprising was called a “Mutiny” by the British to delegitimise it. However, today, India remembers it as the “First War of Independence” or “Indian Rebellion of 1857”.

His concern becomes clear through his account of such dichotomous events: How can we defend truth in an era where everyone’s version is different?

Truth and literature have a close connection with each other. Literature, often called the reflection of society, contains the reality of its age and generation. This is where the writer’s power resides: to paint the world as it is, by lending a voice to the marginalised. Rushdie points out that 19th-century realist writers such as Gustave Flaubert, George Eliot and Henry James assumed a stable, bourgeois worldview. Jane Eyre, often regarded as “The mother of the modern novel”, ignored the Napoleonic wars (1803-1815) in her much-celebrated novel ‘Jane Eyre’. Similarly, Charles Dickens barely mentions the imperial contexts of the British Empire in his novels. For Rushdie, literature must reflect politics and history because public events inevitably shape private lives.

But with the 20th-century upheavals like decolonisation, civil rights, feminist movement, world wars, etc, this consensus worldview shattered. Slowly, literature began accommodating diverse voices, opening space for fragmented yet plural truths. Writers such as Franz Kafka, Ralph Ellison, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez have done this by embracing themes like surrealism, magical realism and dystopia in their works.

Rushdie also unpacks the concept of decolonisation when discussing Asians who were ‘exoticised’ and ‘orientalised’ by the West. As a way to unveil the hidden gems of the East, he highlights a few artists. Among them, Amrita Sher Gil, a Hungarian-Indian painter, stands out as the only artist who dared to question and critique India’s literary giant, Rabindra Nath Tagore, the ‘Bard of Bengal.’

The recent GenZ protests saw attacks on media houses and media personnel. Nearly all international outlets reported a distorted version of the events in Nepal, further obscuring the truth. Similarly, Rushdie recounts incidents of journalists silenced for not being pro-Modi in India. For example, the editor of The Hindu was forced to resign because the paper’s owners felt he was not pro Modi enough. He equates an attack on journalism with an attack on artistic freedom.

In this vein, he applauds the resilience of democracies truth tellers who are rarely celebrated. One specific name he mentions is Taryn Simon, who represents all fearless photographers and photojournalists who have risked their lives to reveal ‘invisible systems’ wrecking democracy. As Rushdie notes, when light is turned on, cockroaches and vampires run away. Similarly, a photographer’s lens exposes those hiding ugly truths.

Although democracy is practiced by most countries, Rushdie fears it may be used by states to manipulate truth while still claiming to be democratic. He draws on an example of Pakistan’s duplicity on Osama Bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad. Similarly, Pakistan’s support for jihadist groups against India shows how truth is weaponised geopolitically, substantiating his fear.

My favourite part of the book, which I take as a personal lesson, was the ‘freedom paradox’. I was fascinated with how the idea of freedom is intertwined with religion. For instance, when we think of America, we imagine it as a land of freedom. Americans often don’t come across as particularly devoted to religion. Yet, according to Rushdie, the American concept of freedom is associated with the liberty to practice religion. In contrast, Europe views freedom as an emancipation from the shackles of religion. Rushdie excellently describes this by unpacking its historical context.

He must also be credited with drawing parallels between real life and film adaptation. He argues that adaptation is not merely about transferring a novel to a film. Rather, it is about preserving its original essence. Similarly, for people who move abroad with dreams, acculturation always carries the fear of identity loss. In this process, they must not forget their roots and histories, which often form the backbone of their existence.

This directly leads Rushdie to delve into the paradoxical nature of being human. He refutes the universal claim that we are born with clean slates. In fact, we are the inheritors of histories, cultures and contradictions. Like Shakespeare’s Cleopatra, we are moral beings but also carry ‘immortal longings’. Contradiction is not a flaw but our lifeblood.

Literature is no different. It thrives on paradoxes. Our ability to simultaneously be both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ makes us human.

However, the numerous references to works by different authors in the book can at times leave readers scratching their heads in frustration. This book is not recommended for those who prefer light fiction.

In conclusion, Rushdie says, fiction sways back and forth between our contradictions and our possibilities. One cannot confuse fiction with autobiography. Though an author’s life inevitably seeps into their work, it is absurd to assume that a novel is merely the author’s life in disguise.

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Languages of truth

Author: Salman Rushdie

Publisher: Jonathan Cape

Year: 2021