When The Satanic Verses went about kicking up more dust and storm than a (commercial) publication could afford to, Salman Rushdie, the author, wrote many an article about freedom of expression. In one such article he argued that the freedom of expression necessarily implies the freedom to hurt feelings. Otherwise it wouldn’t be freedom. And he’s right. More or less at the same time he wrote another article titled “Is nothing sacred?” For him, said the article, only bread and books are sacred: food for the body as well as the mind. Sanctity is almost always an attribute; it is attributed by us human beings to certain entities. There are 330 million gods in India. Apart from them we have rivers, mountains, caves, trees, and umpteen other things which are supposed to be sacred. Is India sacred? If it is, which India is it? Is it the India represented by the Parliament (the elected leaders)? Is it the Constitution of the country? Is it the national symb
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