Midnight146;s Knight

Islam and the West.

That it is a politically loaded decision and one that successive British administrations have been wary of is evident from the immediate reaction. Iran has reacted with predictable fury 8212; by knighting Rushdie, it declared, Britain insulted the Islamic world. Honouring and commending an apostate and hated figure will definitely put Britain in confrontation with Islamic societies, it said in a statement. Pakistan8217;s national assembly has also passed a unanimous resolution against the decision and wants it to be revoked.

There is of course no official reaction from India, which has long held an ambiguous relationship with Britain8217;s honour system as well as Rushdie himself.

While his stature as a writer is celebrated with considerable pride at the literary achievements of a son of the soil, equally there is trepidation at the political fallout of his writings. And although the Indian state does not recognise any title granted by a foreign state, it is quite liberal about its citizens accepting the honour themselves.

But the issue was hotly debated in 1948 when the Constitution was being framed. Most Indians gave up their British titles after independence. Perhaps the most famous rejection was Rabindranath Tagore8217;s, who returned the title in protest against the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

Despite this, some members suggested that those who had failed to do so should be asked to forfeit the right to remain Indian citizens. Plenty of barbs were made against Nehru8217;s blue-eyed boys of the ICS who had been knighted by the British crown and continued to retain the title to the fury of many, including Delhi8217;s man in Washington, Sir Girija Shankar Bajpai.

Now, sixty years later, a post-colonial Indian, and one of the more celebrated ones at that, has been rewarded for his contributions to society at large and the literary world in particular. And just like his fellow Indian-origin writer and bete noire, V.S. Naipaul, it8217;s an honour that is likely to be acclaimed by the large Indian diaspora throughout the world as well as those back home.

The royal honours8217; system is something that is often a hot topic of debate in the UK. There are some who argue it is an archaic and secretive system which unfairly favours civil servants, diplomats and selected public figures.

Since the Queen grants the honour on the recommendation of the government of the day, it is certainly not immune to politics 8212; there is no surprise that the sudden increase in the number of Asians in the annual honours8217; list has corresponded with the steady rise in the community8217;s influence.

What is perhaps surprising is the debate it can generate in the countries that once made up the British empire and where a somewhat outdated concept of conferring rank should have little relevance. When Naipaul was knighted in 1990, there was a sharp polarity of opinion between those who revered and reviled him. Just like when he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001, much of the acclaim came from the West for a writer who is seen as having raised the bar for post-colonial literature. But both in the Caribbean and in much of the East, the reaction was less laudatory because of his frequent pronouncements on the inadequacies of post-colonial societies, on Hindu nationalism and on Islam.

Several years later, another South Asian writer finds himself similarly assessed. Rushdie and Naipaul have a lot in common, even if they occupy two ends of the political stratosphere. Like his West Indian peer, Rushdie left his native land as a young man to settle in England. Both ended up in partially self-imposed exile 8212; Naipaul visited his native Trinidad and Tobago after a fifteen-year hiatus, while Rushdie made an appearance in

India in 2000 after twelve years.

Yet, in many ways, the Caribbean has been less ambiguous about its relationship with Naipaul. He is seen as someone who has rejected his roots and his recent writing has transported him into a different realm of experience. For Rushdie, his rejection by India, the land which inspired the bulk of his literary work, was something that was to haunt and traumatise him for years. 8220;It is a terrible feeling of rejection,8221; he wrote. 8220;Is this the reward for a lifetime8217;s work? It8217;s like a divorce in which one person doesn8217;t want to get divorced and is left alone.8221;

But while Rushdie was ostracised by the state, he continued to be idolised by middle-class India. Since his return he has now occupied a media space of his own, with almost equal attention being paid to his writing and his socialising, with the glamorous Padma Lakshmi as arm candy. For the many who take pride in the continuing rise of Indian Writers in English, he is the brand ambassador.

There is of course the not inconsiderable delight at 8220;natives8221; coming good in the mother country 8212; curry post-colonialism with points scored for every institution that falls to the former colony, from food to steel to cinema and cricket. So Sir Salman is a sobriquet that should sit well in India. Even if the government maintains a strategic silence.

The writer is the BBC8217;s India correspondent. Views are his own