NEW DELHI, Feb 9 (AFP) - Booker Prize winning novelist Arundhati  
Roy on Tuesday condemned rising religious fundamentalism in India, 
following Moslem warnings over British writer Salman Rushdie's 
proposed visit to the country. 
   Roy, herself under attack in India for her award-winning debut  
novel "The God of Small Things" in which she allegedly belittled a 
communist leader, told AFP that religious intolerance and hatred 
were increasing among Hindus and Moslems in India. 
   "I think it's just a part in the pattern of what's happening in  
this country," she said, when asked to comment on threats by Syed 
Ahmad Bukhari, deputy priest of India's largest mosque, that Rushdie 
would be "relentlessly" pursued if he came to India. 
   Bukahri also warned of possible Hindu-Moslem violence.  
   "They all belong to the same boat whether its the (Hindu  
right-wing organisation) VHP or the Naib Imam (Deputy Priest) 
Bukhari," Roy said. 
   "Religious intolerance is rising and the freedom of expression  
is under increasing threat," she said. 
   "It is precisely in these times when poets and actors and  
writers and sculptors and playwrights should stand up to (attacks) 
rather than bowing like some have done." 
   The Indian government last month decided to grant Rushdie a visa  
for the first time since 1989 when Iran's deceased leader Ayatollah 
Ruhollah Khomeini issued a death sentence against him for his 
controversial novel, "The Satanic Verses" -- viewed as blasphemous 
by many Moslems. 
   India, which has the world's second largest Moslem population,  
was the first country to ban the novel. 
   Roy said she had predicted religious tensions would escalate in  
India after New Delhi staged shock nuclear tests last May, 
triggering a tit-for-tat riposte from Moslem-majority Pakistan. 
   She said every single citizen in multi-cultural India, whose  
population is overwhelmingly Hindu, could claim membership of one 
minority or another. 
   "If you look for them, they run vertically, horizontally,  
layered, whorled, circular, spiral, inside out and outside in. Fires 
when they're lit race along any one of the schisms and in the 
process release tremendous bouts of political energy."