Exile: Taslima Nasreen’s Memoir

EXILE is a memoir written by the Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen. This book speaks about her life in India after she was banned from Bangladesh. Taslima chose to live in Bengal. Being a Bengali herself, she felt very much at home in Kolkata and wanted to live here for good. Taslima was previously  living in exile in the West, since 1994 when she was forced to leave Bangladesh. She lived in America and Europe but could not connect herself to the people and the atmosphere of the west. In 2004 after living for more than 10 years in the west she was granted a temporary residence permit for India and it was like a dream come true to her. She flew from Sweden to India wishing a peaceful life here. She tried to re- establish her long lost Bengali roots, and live in peace here. She got attached to Kolkata and even built a home here.

Taslima was called to Hyderabad for the inauguration of a Telugu translation of one of her books. Here she was attacked by a radical group. With great difficulty and under police protection, she left to Kolkata. From there she was forced to leave to Jaipur and then was shifted to Delhi where she lived under house arrest, always under the supervision of the authorities. Finally she could not take the strain and had to leave to Sweden once again.

EXILE is the book where she speaks about her stay in India, the politics involved in shifting her to different places, and the trauma and strain she had to undergo during her house arrest. Speaking about how her fellow writers treated her, she says that there were so many lies written about her by others but she has always maintained the principle “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” and she expected the same from the intellectuals and writers of the world. But she was surprised when her freedom of speech led her to a life of Exile and then many  who speak in support of freedom of expression refused to be by her side in her struggle.

She writes “The AIMIM leaders from Hyderabad were specially invited for a public meeting at Esplanade in Kolkata. There in broad daylight, they decided upon the price on my head. When the public demanded to know how much the prize money should be, a leader from the group declared it would be five lakh rupees. Immediately, one of the delegates from Hyderabad corrected him “Unlimited!”. And the leaders of State cheered and passed the fatwa unanimously. Not a single ripple appeared anywhere, Isn’t it  truly charmed life they live in India”…… A statement we all need to think about. She also questions “Why academicians, authors, cultural luminaries, the government and the politicians all cower and bow in response to the fundamentalists”

After her autobiography was first banned in Kolkata, Taslima assumed that Jyoti Basu would be in favour of the ban, in solidarity with his political party. But to her surprise, he had spoken out against the ban and she respected him for that. Except him, no other communist leader had spoken even a word against the decisions of the party, regardless of their personal viewpoint or the fairness of the decree. That perhaps had been the saddest thing of all, to have to renounce one’s agency and common sense in order to be part of a mindless political organization…. writes Taslima.

Talsima was first kept under house arrest in Kolkata. After the incidents on 21^st November, She was then hurriedly shifted to Jaipur which she assumed must be a temporary shift. If people were truly hurt or angry on her for what she wrote in her book, then they should have left the matter when she deleted those passages, but the unrest grew on. She left Kolkata only with her laptop and a few things needed for two days. She was shocked to know that officials from Kolkata have tricked her and made her leave her residence. They also informed the officials at Jaipur that she had an event there to attend and that was why she was brought there. Her location and stay were revealed on national television and she was shocked at this callous behavior of the people she loved the most. She was then hastily shifted to Delhi and forced to stay there. She remembers how Prasun Mukherjee spoke with the Imam and tried to gain peace when a fatwa was issued on her earlier. Now no one interfered and forced her to leave the city to please the fundamentalists. This was a major change of events she experienced due to the change in the Indian political scenario and this hurt her the most.

She also writes about Buddhadeb Bhttacharya who has attended a programme organized to commemorate the fifteenth anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Masjid. He told the people that Ram was merely an idea, and the controversy surrounding the temple was simply madness. A few days before this, he bowed down to the dictates of Islamic radicals and had not uttered a peep about their barbaric acts all over the city and defended their right to protect their religious sentiments. Instead of punishing the guilty he made sure that Taslima left Kolkata. And now he was here hurting the religious sentiments of the Hindus. This was all pure politics, and definitely there seems to be no concern towards religious sentiments. He was afraid of losing the Muslim vote by keeping Taslima in Kolkata. She agreed to remove the lines which had most offended the fundamentalists from her autobiography, because she was afraid of the so called secular democratic political parties and the codes of conduct determined by the Indian government before they granted her asylum. But still she was not spared. She questions him through this book “Stalin used to banish those who were staunchly anti-Stalinist. Me, I had never been anti-Buddhadeb, Mr Bhattacharya?….. She also asks “Do we judge a king’s character by how long he managed to hang on to his throne? Shouldn’t a king be judged solely by his actions? Can we answer these questions anytime……

In West Taslima was given a lot of respect and no conditions were placed on her freedom of speech, and no one told her to speak in measured tones because she had been given shelter. But in India things were different. Yet she could not connect herself with the west and longed to be part of India. While she was in Delhi, the officials made things difficult to her and forced her to leave to Sweden through their direct or indirect hints. While she tried to get back to Bangladesh, her friend Hameeda Hossain wrote to her “We don’t yet have the freedom that will allow us the freedom to say whatever we wish to. It’s become a part of the culture to use religion for the benefit of politics” A harmless cartoon by Arifur Rahman in Bangladesh, led to protests and the cartoonist was fired by his ex-communist boss. The editor Motiur Rahman also apologized to the khatib by crouching on his knees. Taslima writes here “When communists begin to rot, they rot badly and the stench is enough to smother a nation” That is today’s Bangladesh… “Thirty million people gave up their lives and two million women got raped for the independence of this Bangladesh.

During house arrest Taslima was not allowed to meet anyone, or go out alone. She was surprised to see someone other than her taking decisions regarding how long she can be out and how long she can talk to her friends. She was forced to be in exile under the pretext that if she is let out free mass violence will take place and she has to be in exile for the safety of the innocent citizens of India. Taslima quotes “The Greek philosopher Plato thought that artists were dangerous people and exiled them from his ideal Republic” and the world’s largest democracy INDIA has done the same. Press was monitored. Several articles were written as per instructions from the ministry. When Sheela Reddy of Outlook magazine organized for a petition to be signed in support of Taslima, Brinda Karat refused to sign it.

Taslima never regrets about what she has written. She says “I have never written out of a desire to led Muslim society out of the Dark Ages, I write what I believe in, I write about my convictions”. While she was in exile, She received a letter from Benazir Bhutto. In that letter she was calling Sonia Gandhi by her first name. Taslima was not sure if it was really Benazir who has written the letter and never replied. She had no chance to find out the truth, because Benazir was killed while Taslima was yet in her Exile.

When Mr. Svensson came to meet her from Sweden representing the government of Sweden, Indian government was very generous in spending a lot of money on his stay. They wanted him to convince Taslima to move to Sweden. Svensson enjoyed the privileges and was quiet about her situation. Taslima writes even he has taken advantage of her helplessness and that made her more lonely.

Taslima says There are not many people born to Muslim families in India who can claim to be atheists. This speaks about the pressure of religion on their intellect. Arundhati Roy, Ritu Menon and the renowned human rights lawyer India Jaising wanted Taslima to file a case against the government. But Taslima never wanted to get her freedom that way. She lost her health, her BP was shooting up, she felt she may die of heart attack but still she was not given proper medical care. A wrong diagnosis done by an inefficient doctor worsened her health. There were days when she started losing confidence on herself and her fight. But kept on telling herself “My fight for my freedom of speech and expression is also how I fight for the same rights on behalf of others” and this became her sole purpose in living. She could not get to a good doctor. Being a doctor herself she was able to understand the urgency of proper treatment and medication in her condition. The doctors she chose and approached were threatened by the police and she was forced to get checked by the inefficient doctors officials chose for her.

After four months of house arrest in Kolkata and three in Delhi, Taslima’s health deteriorated and she was tired and fed up. Despite having spoken at length about humanism, human rights and women’s right in India, no political party, no human rights organization or women’s rights groups, nor any  social justice collective had spoken on her behalf after she was attacked. This new face of India where she experienced the inability to organize collective action for seeking justice and rights has terrorized her. Finally she understood that The Communist party of India Marxist has originally driven her out of Kolkata to divert attention from the CPM’s central role in the Nandigram violence’s, as well to win favor from Muslims who were main victims of the Nadigram brutality. Taslima finally left to Sweden unsure of her future and with shattered hopes, dreams, and respect she had for India.

The book seems a bit long with all picked up passages and articles published in various newspapers and magazines while Taslima Nasreen was in Exile. But the anguish, the hopelessness and the disappointment Taslima felt and experienced in India can be felt in every page and this gives the reader a lot of material to think about to understand the changed political scenario in India and the dominance of fundamentalists in Indian politics, whatever race, religion or party they belong to.

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