Banished within and without

The 45-year-old writer was forced to leave her ‘home’ Kolkata in November last. In a write-up, penned around the time she had to leave Kolkata, Taslima Nasreen shares her love for India

Although I was not born an Indian there is very little about my appearance, tastes and traditions to distinguish me from a daughter of the soil. In a village in what was then East Bengal, there once lived a poor farmer by the name of Haradhan Sarkar, one of whose sons, Komol, driven to fury by zamindari oppression, converted to Islam and became Kamal. I belong to this family. Haradhan Sarkar was my great-grandfather’s father. Haradhan’s other descendants obviously moved to India either during or after partition and became citizens of this country. My grandfather, a Muslim, did not.

I wrote a number of poems and stories lamenting the loss of undivided Bengal, even before I visited this country. I simply could not bring myself to accept the bit of barbed wire that kept families and friends apart even though they shared a language and culture. What hurt most was that this wire had been secured by religion.

By my early teens I had forsaken religion and turned towards secular humanism and feminism which were in no way artificially imposed. My father, a man with a modern scientific outlook, encouraged me to introspect and as I grew older I broke away not just from religion but also from the very culture, which constantly oppressed and denigrated women.

When I first visited India, specifically West Bengal, in 1989, I did not for an instant think I was in a foreign land.

The intolerance and bigotry of Islamic fundamentalists forced me to leave Bangladesh. I was forced to go into exile; the doors of my own country slammed on my face for good. Since that moment I sought refuge in India. When I was finally allowed entry, not for an instant did I think I was in an alien land.

Even after spending 12 years in Europe I could not think of it as my home. It took less than a year to think of India as my home. Is it because we, India and I, share a common history? Had East Bengal remained a province of undivided India, would the state have tolerated an attack on basic human freedoms and values? Is the burden of defending human and democratic values solely a European or American concern? The gates of India remained firmly shut when I needed her shelter the most. Europeans welcomed me with open arms. Yet, in Europe I always considered myself a stranger, an outsider. After 12 long years in exile when I arrived in India it felt as though I had been resurrected from some lonely grave.

In the meanwhile, a few Islamic fundamentalists in Hyderabad chose to launch a physical attack upon me.`A0The decision to attack me was motivated by the desire to gain popularity among the local masses. "A woman by the name of Taslima Nasreen has launched a vicious attack upon Islam and is all set to destroy the tenets of the faith. Therefore, Islam must be protected from this woman and the only way to do so is to kill her.Her death will bring many rewards: millions as fatwa bounty in this world, salvation and unparalleled delights in the next." This is the manner in which Islamic fundamentalists in secular India are attempting to entice uninformed Muslims.

I live practically under house arrest. No public place is allegedly safe for me any longer.Even stepping out for a walk is considered unsafe. Those who threaten to kill me are allowed by the state to spew their venom. They have tacitly been given the right to do whatever they desire from disturbing the peace with their demonstrations to terrorising the common man in the name of their faith.

If India gives in to the fundamentalists’ demand to deport me, the list of demands will become an endless one. A deportation today, a ban tomorrow, an execution the day after. Where will it cease? They will pursue their agenda with boundless enthusiasm knowing that victory is certain.

Even in my worst nightmares I had not imagined that I would be persecuted in India as I was in Bangladesh. Persecuted by the majority in one and a minority in another, but persecuted just the same. The bigotry, the intolerance, the death threats, the terrors: all the same. I often wonder what good it would do them to kill me. The fundamentalists are very well aware that it may bring them some benefit but will do nothing for the cause of Islam.

The face of fundamentalism, its language and its intentions are the same the world over: to grab civilisation by the scruff of its neck and drag it back a few millennia kicking and screaming.

Always outspoken, I am now silenced, unable to demonstrate, left without the means of protesting for what I hold dear. I spend my existence surrounded by walls: a prisoner. But I refuse to acknowledge this as my destiny. I still believe that one day I will be able to resume the life I once enjoyed. I still believe that India, unlike Bangladesh, will triumph over fundamentalism. I still believe that I will find shelter and solace here. The love and affection of Indians is my true shelter and solace. I still believe I will be able to spend the rest of my life here free of worries. If I were to be ejected from this country it would amount to the cold-blooded murder of my most cherished ideals, perhaps a fate far worse than I could meet at the hands of any fundamentalist.

I have nowhere to go, no country or home to return to. India is my country, India is my home. How much more will I have to endure at the hands of fundamentalists and their vote-grabbing political allies for the cardinal sin of daring to articulate the truth? — TWF

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