Karnataka HC Refuses To Block Invite To Muslim Writer Banu Mushtaq For Mysuru Dasara Inauguration

The High Court of Karnataka on Monday (15 September) declined to interfere with the State Government’s decision to invite Muslim writer and activist Banu Mushtaq to inaugurate the Mysuru Dasara festival on 22 September, The Hindu reported.

Mushtaq’s collection of Kannada short stories, translated into English, won the 2025 International Booker Prize.

A division bench of Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice CM Joshi dismissed petitions filed by former Mysuru MP Pratap Simha, along with Girish Kumar T, Sowmya R and HS Gaurav from Bengaluru.

“We are not persuaded to accept the arguments that an invitation to a person of different faith violate constitutional or legal right,” the bench observed while pronouncing the operative order.

Simha challenged the invitation, alleging Mushtaq had made “anti-Hindu and anti-Kannada” remarks at a 2023 literary event and that she was invited without consulting representatives of the Mysuru royal family.

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He argued that her comments showed that she has no faith in worshipping a Hindu goddess, adding he had no objection to inviting her if she withdrew her anti-Hindu and anti-Kannada statements.

Counsel for the petitioners asked, “How could the State government invite a person who has no faith in worshipping a Hindu goddess, to inaugurate the Dasara festival, which commences by worshipping a goddess as per Hindu rituals?”

State Advocate General Shashi Kiran Shetty countered that Simha, while an MP, had shared the stage with poet Nissar Ahmed, who inaugurated the festival in 2017.

He added that the government had already notified that no one, regardless of caste or religion, can be barred from entering temples, and said it was performing its secular duty in organising the Dasara festival in Mysuru.

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