SUMMARY
In this article, the Orientalist discourse in Salman Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown (2005), one of the author’s most problematic Works and his first novel after 9/11, is analyzed. It is argued that rather than questioning the assumptions about the “Islamic terrorist” and its place in the Western collective conscious, Rushdie reinforces and licenses the intellectual neo-orientalist discourse of “the axis of evil” perpetuated by the Bush administration by applying the stereotypes and clichés about the East, without engaging in a dialogue to understand the Other or historicizing the subject matter. It is also aimed to expose how Rushdie’s so-called “insider” status that arises because of his Indian origin and coming from amonst Muslims, gives him an unfair credit and makes him all the more credible in the eyes of his readership, mostly the literary intelligencia of the West. By building on the old and new post-colonial scholarship of particularly Edward Said, Frantz Fanon, Mahmood Mandani, and Pankaj Mishra, it is analyzed how, unlike many intellectuals, Rushdie positions himself amongst the neo-conservatives of the United States.