I don't really want to talk extensively about my presentation because I will be writing my paper on it and I feel as though I talked enough about it in class on Wednesday. But there was something from the section we read for today (and a part that was referred to in class) that when I feel both relates back to the point of my presentation and adds a new dimension to it.
The part I am thinking of is India questioning the justice of Shalimar killing Max- after she finds out that there is a lot she doesn't know about Max's involvement in international affairs, she is wondering if "justice had been done to Max," or not.
I think this whole revealing of India's thought process or working through of the "why" concerning her father's assassination relates to a natural response anyone has in the face of tragedy, and provides a new way for Rushdie to enter some of his own agenda in the politics of the story.
This part has particular significance and familiarity in a "larger canvas" post-9/11 world. After the terrorist attacks five years ago, at least part of the population began to question not just why someone would be willing to hijack a plane to fly into a building, killing innocent people as well as themselves, but also whether or not there was some degree of culpability or something we as American/Western people had done to bring about such hatred to drive people to be suicide bombers.
In my opinion, as I am almost confident Rushdie would agree, there was not enough of this sort of discussion, and more of a retaliatory (Bill O'Reilly) type of response. That is what I believe is the purpose of that section, not just to keep India as a fully-fleshed out human character with natural human emotions and reasoning, but to enter into the mix a discussion of justice, and to point out that no one's hands are completely blood-free in the complex "war on terror." As Rushdie explains, "the words right and wrong" have begun "to crumble."
To relate this back to my presentation... What I am and was getting at is that Rushdie is an intelligent writer writing for an intelligent audience (ideally), and thus has a particular message or agenda he is trying to bring forth through a fictional, relatable story taking place in a real historical context. In the story of Shalimar and his family/friends in Kashmir, Rushdie is able to show that Kashmir is being destroyed through the fighting of India and Pakistan and the insurgency, and also subtly express that Kashmir should be left for the Kashmiris.
With India questioning the justifiable nature of her father's murder, Rushdie is reclassifying the average American person who sees Americans as the "victims" in a pure sense related to acts of terrorism, or is at least causing them to briefly consider the complex causation involved in the formation of terrorism movements such as what we saw on September 11.