This admission just took 27 years. How many more before the "mistake" is corrected? https://t.co/qz7t1InXzV - Salman Rushdie (@SalmanRushdie) November 28, 2015

"You can not be a modern liberal society till you eliminate every ideas that fosters inequality." - @PChidambaram_IN #TLFDelhi — Times Lit Fest Delhi (@TimesLitFestDel) November 28, 2015

NEW DELHI: The Rajiv Gandhi government’s decision to ban Salman Rushdie’s book Satanic Verses in October 1988 was “wrong”, former Union minister P Chidambaram said at the Times LitFest on Saturday. He was speaking for openness and tolerance, expressing his disapproval of such cultural bans.Reacting to Chidambaram’s admission, Rushdie tweeted: “This admission just took 27 years, how many more before ‘mistake’ is corrected?”Chidambaram was minister of state for home in Rajiv’s government when the ban kicked in. “I have no hesitation in saying that the ban was wrong,” he said. When the audience asked him if he felt the same way about the Emergency, Chidambaram said: “Indira Gandhi admitted in 1980 that imposing the Emergency was a mistake.” She even said she’d never resort to such action again, if brought back to office. “People believed her and re-elected her,” he said.When the audience asked why it had taken him so long to come to his conclusion on the Rushdie book, Chidambaram said: “If you had asked me 20 years ago, I would have told you the same thing.”Dwelling on the issue of intolerance, Chidambaram said: “It is on the rise” and hoped that this “moral majoritarianism” will fail comprehensively. “What is of profound concern to me is the apparent rise of intolerance. Khap panchayats today are today more visible and more brazen in dispensing kangaroo justice. There is a rush of bans. Ban jeans, ban authors, ban food, ban artist, ban travel, ban NGO.”A forthright Chidambaram said: “The answer to a bad idea is a good idea, not a ban ideal….The concept of liberty is expanding universally. Not all ideas will be accepted but every idea deserves its own space and every idea deserves to be expressed.”He expressed concern that “The increasing tide of illiberalism and intolerance is frightening…Illiberal zealots believe that the state is on their side. Illiberal zealots also believe that if they gather sufficient number they will be the state and their word will be law.” Every idea that fosters inequality must be eliminated and the formation of a truly modern society would be impossible if this were not achieved, he said.Expressing firm faith in the Constitution, he said: “I believe that the Constitution is the most powerful challenge to illiberal tendencies. If the Constitution is followed in letter and spirit and if the laws are made in the spirit in which Constitution was made, liberties can indeed be protected,” he said.When a member of the audience asked him if he was exaggerating the problem to make a political point, Chidambaram said: “I didn’t join the debate today. I have been writing about it. I am sorry you are not among my readers. Today, I got a chance to speak. So, while I write I also speak when I can. And, even if I am exaggerating for the sake of argument I think that’s a tool in the hands of those who want to make a point. Sometimes you have to blow up a picture so that people with short sight can see it.”