Terror, globalization and the individual in Salman Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown

Abstract

This article reads Rushdie’s 2005 novel Shalimar the Clown as an example of how the contemporary postcolonial novel debates terrorism, the neo‐imperialist strategies of post‐war US foreign policy and the Indian state’s military presence in Kashmir. Shalimar the Clown extends his arguments about cultural and economic globalization, resurgent separatist and terrorist movements and its impact on individuals from The Ground Beneath her Feet (1999) and Fury (2001). Like his previous novels, Shalimar the Clown cuts across different time periods and territories, challenging the legacies of empire, nationhood and emergent new empires. Yet the novel’s focus on Kashmir and international terrorism reframes Rushdie’s earlier arguments. Shalimar the Clown engages with the repressions and exclusions that the postcolonial state imposes on its periphery, exemplified in the continuing struggle between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. By discussing “terror” and “terrorism” and how Rushdie subverts these terms in relation to identity, violence and the effects on the individual, this article argues that Shalimar the Clown reroutes postcolonial paradigms by examining transnational terror networks, and their regional and international impact on politics, cultures and identities.

Keywords:

• terrorism
• globalization
• Kashmir
• postcolonial
• Salman Rushdie
• Shalimar the Clown

Notes

1. Rushdie has a special relationship with Kashmir, being of Kashmiri ancestry himself. Kashmir is the starting point for the Sinai family saga in Midnight’s Children, where the territory features as an unspoilt, pure paradise. It is the fictional setting in Haroun and the Sea of Stories, where Rushdie dramatizes the tensions in Kashmiri politics. The short story “The Prophet’s Hair” in East, West is also set in Kashmir. However, Shalimar the Clown is Rushdie’s most detailed engagement with the territory and the conflict between India and Pakistan over it.

2. According to Mirdu Rai, the term Kashmiriyat reflects a peerless tradition of regional nationalism that elevates itself above petty religious rivalries. It is

 founded on the historical survival of what is perceived as a more salient legacy of cultural harmony. However, Kashmiriyat so defined was an idealized “remembering” of one of several shifting meanings of “being Kashmiri”: it was not only summoned but also circulated in very specific political and historical moments. (224)

3. The difference between state violence and terrorist violence, according to Hoffman, lies in the fact that state violence and warfare are governed by certain rules, such as the Geneva and Hague Conventions, that grant particular protection to civilians, prohibit the taking of hostages, regulate the treatment of prisoners of war (POWs), outlaw reprisals against civilians and POWs, recognize neutrality of countries and the rights of those citizens, and guarantees diplomatic immunity (Hoffman 26–27). None of these rules are observed by terrorists or terrorist organizations.

4. According to Nandy, terrorist activity in Kashmir has increased dramatically since the start of the insurgency in 1989: “In India itself, the incidents of terrorism in only the state of Kashmir ranged between 1,243 and 5,793 in the 1990s. Reliable recent data are not available” (133). More recent data from Amnesty International suggest that since the start of the armed struggle in Kashmir in 1989 between 45,000 and 60,000 people have lost their lives (see Amnesty International).