Jaipur:  Writer Salman Rushdie spoke exclusively to NDTV's Barkha Dutt after his video address to the Jaipur Literary Festival was cancelled. 

Here is the full transcript of the interview:

NDTV: One of the best known passages from Salman Rushdie's much acclaimed Midnight's Children  went something like this: "No people whose word for 'yesterday' is the same as their word for 'tomorrow' can be said to have a firm grip on time". These words ring especially true today as India seems locked in an anachronistic, antediluvian controversy over Salman Rushdie. The author, one of the world's foremost writers and commentators, was initially forced to cancel his visit to India, where he was scheduled to take part in the Jaipur Literary Festival, after there were intelligence reports of a threat perception to him. Intelligence reports that later became contentious because no agency seemed willing to claim ownership of them. Then, he was all set to take part via a video link on the last day of the festival, a conversation that I, in fact, was scheduled to moderate, with him. Just a few seconds, in fact, before this conversation was to begin we were all informed that the organizers had decided, on the advice of the police, that there was a serious law and order situation developing, that there were protesters on the grounds of the venue, and that protesters had even taken to marching to the venue, saying that anybody who telecast this interview would be liable to a threat, and a physical threat, to themselves. The organizers then decided that to prevent this threat to anybody present here, as well as to the author himself, they would be calling off this video link. For the last week, in fact, so many of us have lamented this sort of situation where a state and a government cannot guarantee safety based on freedom of speech and expression. Salman Rushdie was not able, eventually, to take part in the Jaipur Literary Fest but he is joining us today. Salman, I can't even begin to imagine how angry and disappointed you must be right now. What are your first thoughts, your first reactions, to all that has happened. You have not even been able to participate via a video-conference as we were hoping to do.

Salman Rushdie: Well, I mean, of course I have a lot of personal disappointment. But my overwhelming feeling is a disappointment on behalf of India, which is a country that I have loved all my life and whose long-term commitment to secularism and liberty is something I've praised for much of my life. And now I find an India in which religious extremists can prevent free expression of ideas at a literary festival, in which the politicians are too, let's say, in bed with those groups to wish to oppose them for narrow electoral reasons, in which the police forces are unable to secure venues against demonstrators even when they know the demonstration is on its way. This decline in public standards, and in the liberty of ordinary Indian citizens to engage in discourse, to hear differing points of view, that's the thing that makes me saddest. Of course, I'm very sad not to be there, but, as I say, I am sadder on behalf of the country in which this is happening.

Unfortunately I think that is true. I am at a loss to understand why it's happened now, other than, of course, what everyone has said, that it's somehow connected to the UP elections and the desire to collect the Muslim vote in those elections. But, I've visited India, as you know Barkha, a number of times in these last years; five or six times in the last eight or nine years. I've even spoken at the Jaipur Festival with you, four years ago. I spoke at the India Today Conclave in Delhi last year. I brought my family for a several weeks-long holiday in India the year before that. I've been coming and going a lot and it's astonishing to me that suddenly not only my physical presence, but even my image on a video screen is considered to be unacceptable. I think it's pretty shocking.

I believe that's so, yes; that must be so because there is no other sensible explanation. And I would just like to say that while I've been cast as this so called enemy of Islam, which seems ludicrous to anyone who knows how I have written and spoken over the years, the real enemies of Islam are the leaders, the Deobandis, the various extremist leaders and their followers, who behave like this, because what they do is to strengthen the extremely negative image of Islam as an intolerant, repressive, and violent culture, as an ideology masquerading as a gentle faith, whereas actually what happens every time it's crossed, or every time it dislikes something, is that it resorts to threats and violence. People like this, who behave like this, are the ones who feed that image and they are the ones responsible for the negative views of Islam in the world, and they should be called the enemies of the faith.

Well I must say I have been incredibly appreciative of how positive the public response has been, you know, on the social media and elsewhere. How positive and supportive Indian media have been, almost unanimously, nothing is ever 100% unanimous, but you know the huge media response and the public response has been very heartening. And it is what shows me that the India that I have been talking about, that India which values freedom, is very much alive and kicking, and is not being well represented by its leaders. So I want to thank all those people who sent me messages via social media and others through other ways. I really appreciated it, and I believe in India as I always did. I just don't believe in the people at the top.