The present paper strives to analyze Rushdie’s attitude to the woman question with special reference to Shalimar the Clownas he revolts against the conventional phallocentric construction of gender as well as the religious fundamentalism that considers woman as the evil incarnate. Salman Rushdie’s depiction of women is an area of much contention as critics down the ages have observed a strange ambiguous attitude that is central to his portrayal of women characters in his novels which makes Gayatri Spivak to observe that Rushdie’s “anxiety” to construct women in the history is an “honourable failure.” Although he portrays strong female characters, however, they are all peripheral to the plot and their actions have hardly any influence over the principal male characters of his novels.

The article, mainly, argues how Rushdie draws a transitional network of global violence, power-capital, Islamic terrorism and their regional and international impact on politics on a borderless canvas. This tinsel and outrageous storyline hinges us with the unresolved issue of Kashmir, once a paradise, now becomes a land of evil extravaganza. The novel begins at the end, with the murder of the former American ambassador to India, Maxmilan Ophuls, now a counterterrorist expert, then introduces his murderer, Shalimar the clown, Kashmiri actor and acrobat-cum-terrorist, and Ophuls's illegitimate daughter - India, who draws the curtain to a conclusion as terror-filled and ambiguous. This postcolonial novel debates India's state military presence, the neo-imperialist strategies of post-war US foreign policy, economic globalisation and resurgent separatist and terrorist movements with its effect on individual.

This paper will traverse on how Salman Rushdie's 2005 novel, Shalimar the Clown has unveiled politics, Muslim jihadist, terrorism and Kashmir through a sprawling tale of love and revenge.

Shalimar rushdie