Denying Taslima Nasreen a Refuge is An Affront to India’s pluralist culture

Denying Taslima Nasreen a Refuge is An Affront to India’s pluralist culture

by Madanjeet Singh [November 24, 2007]

I am shocked and ashamed as an Indian to learn that the Bengali poet and writer, Taslima Nasreen, the living embodiment of secular culture, has been compelled to move out of West Bengal, first to Jaipur and then to Delhi, because of her secular views.

It is deplorable that the authorities and the leading political parties, the Congress, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and the CPI (M)-Ied Left Front Government are using unfortunate Taslima as the political shuttlecock with their ugly rackets of pseudo secularism. Their perfidious political maneuvers are clearly exposed by the recent violent events in Kolkota, the spark of which was ignited by a small group of protesters led by Ali (full name?), a Congress affiliated All India Minority Forum demanding cancellation of Nareen’s Indian visa. The protest turned into a mayhem as the local CPM boss Bimal Bose threw oil into the fire of violence by stating that “Taslima Nasreen should leave West Bengla”. Then realizing that this was contrary to the fundamental secular profession of his party, he hit the shuttlecock into the Congress court by explaining that “the state government does not have the authority to grant or cancel visa and only the Centre can do this and therefore let the Union Government take an appropriate decision on his issue.” Then BJP, the viciously anti-Muslim organization that demolished the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya, suddenly became holier than thou by seizing upon Bose’s comment to drive home that Left’s commitment to freedom of expression was fake. “how can you ask her to leave West Bengal when she has been allowed to stay anywhere in India?” asked BJP leader VK Malhotra.” Thus in order to gain political mileage, BJP hit the Taslima shuttlecock into the UPA court of both the Congress and the CPI (M)-Ied Left Front Governments by demanding that she be given permanent visa to stay in India, even if the communalists had to cut their noses to spite political adversaries.

The terrorists have arrogated to themselves the role of lawmakers, judges, and executioners of people whom they accuse of blasphemy and go around freely violating the human rights of artists, writers, filmmakers, scholars, and other cultural practitioners. Taslima Nasreen is among the victims. She had no option but to flee her country and take refuge in India, unaware that that the long arm of Al Qaeda network of International Islamic Front (IIF) and its subsidiaries as the Bangladesh–based Huji, Simi and Jamiat, would not spare her even in India. She was threatened by an Indian Taliban, Taqi Raza Khan, the head of the All India Ibtehad Council, who wants her beheaded (qatal) and has publicly offered Rs. Five lakhs to anyone who would carry out the execution because of her secular views. The bigots also passed a resolution to oust Nasreen from India "for her crime in attacking the Islamic Shariah laws."

Taslima Nasreen, was awarded the 2004 UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance and Non-Violence by the UNESCO Director-General Koichiro Matsuura on behalf of an International Jury. The prize was established in 1995, marking Mahatma Gandhi’s 125th birth anniversary and awarded on the United Nations’ Day of Tolerance on 16 November. Taslima poignantly described her ordeal in the speech she delivered accepting the award at UNESCO headquarters in Paris which received a long and standing ovation: “Bangladesh”, stated Nasreen, “is a nation of more than 133 million, a country where 70 per cent of the people live below the poverty line, where more than half of the population cannot read and write. Nearly 40 million women have no access to education nor do they have the possibility of becoming independent. With the country's strong patriarchal tradition, women suffer unbearable inequalities and injustices. They are considered intellectually, morally, physically and psychologically inferior by religion, tradition, culture and customs. As a result, the fundamentalists refuse to tolerate any of my views. They could not tolerate my saying that the religious scriptures are out of time and out of place. They were upset at my saying that religious law, which discriminates against women, needs to be replaced by secular law and a uniform civil code. Hundreds of thousands of the extremists appeared on the streets and demanded my execution by hanging”.

“Humankind is facing an uncertain future. In particular, the conflict is between two different ideas, secularism and fundamentalism. I don't agree with those who think the conflict is between two religions, namely Christianity and Islam, or Judaism and Islam. Nor do I think that this is a conflict between the East and the West. To me, this conflict is basically between modern, rational, logical thinking and irrational, blind faith. While some strive to go forward, others strive to go backward. It is a conflict between the future and the past, between innovation and tradition, between those who value freedom and those who do not. My pen is the weapon I use to fight for a secular humanism.”

The Indian government’s ambivalent response has emboldened the communal fanatics. Taslima Nasrin was again roughed up in Hyderabad by three legislators of the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) and a mob led by them in the Press Club of where she was invited to release her book Lajjai (Shame), translated into Telugu. The book had nothing to do with offending Islam. It describes how the hooligans of Jamat-e-Islami of Bangladesh attacked Hindus and demolished their temples and set fire to their houses in retaliation to the demolition of Babri Masjid by the Hindutva fanatics. She condemns terrorism and tells how some fair-minded Hindus stood by Muslims when Hindu fanatics attacked them in India. And likewise the fair-minded Muslims protected the Hindu and other minorities in Bangladesh.

In Hyderabad, Taslima had just completed her engagement when about 20 MIM activists, led by MLAs Syed Ahmed Pasha Qadri, Afsar Khan and Moazzam Khan, barged into the conference hall. She looked in disbelief as they hurled abuses against her, demanding to know "who had mustered the guts to invite her to Hyderabad.” Without further warning, they began throwing books, bouquets, chairs, and whatever they could lay their hands on at her. A number of people sustained injuries in the scuffle including journalists trying to shield her. One of the MLAs threatened that “if Taslima comes to Hyderabad again, she will be beheaded”. Nasrin escaped unhurt though she was badly shaken. Later she made a categorical statement that “if Islam stands for such hooliganism I will fight the evil till my death".

The inability of the authorities to apprehend and punish the criminals out to kill Taslima and hesitation in giving her permanent resident in India is not a political issue. It is against all ethical and traditional norms of Indian morality of protecting a refugee in distress as was done in the case of the Dalai Lama. The expulsion of Taslima Nasreen by the CPI (M)-Ied Left Front Government from West Bengal (which she calls her second home) is an affront to India's pluralist, secular culture and traditional multiculturalism. It is all the more deplorable if is it is true that the decision was taken in consultation with the Central Government which must abide by India's ancient cultural traditions. In the Sibi Jataka, painted in the 2nd - 5th century at the Ajanta Caves, the king of the Sibis offered an equal weight of his own flesh to save a dove that a hawk wanted to kill as its prey.


Excerpts from Madanjeet Singh’s forthcoming book, Cultures and Vultures. He is a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador and Founder, South Asia Foundation.