My captors left without even a farewell. That in itself is completely out of character, though I understand the reason for it in this case. They were angry because I had given my reaction to Jyoti Basu’s comments to the television channels. Many journalists have been calling and to one of them, whom I knew, I had said, ‘I feel delighted hearing what Jyoti Basu has said. Hopefully, one day people will wake up to reason and I will again be able to return to my beloved Kolkata.’ Why shouldn’t I be allowed to say even this much! Jyoti Basu has always been fond of me. Why must I keep quiet even after he has welcomed me to Kolkata? Why can I not express my desires aloud? My captors had sternly instructed me to stay away from the press, because the press is bad through and through. I have tried to live firmly by this decree from the very first day. However, the more I know of my captors and their overlords, the more I become convinced that none of them are the gods they would like to believe they are.
27 December
This evening I was talking to my captors; in the background the Times Now headlines were focused on Pranab Mukherjee telling the media that while it was the state government’s responsibility to take care of someone’s security, the Centre would graciously step in if the former made a request for aid. In the middle of this, breaking news started filtering in from Rawalpindi about a bombing at an electoral meeting of Benazir Bhutto. My eyes were inevitably drawn to the television—to a mass of dead bodies, half-blown skulls and mangled carcasses, people running, screaming and wailing. So terrible! Such a devastating sight! The ticker was giving live updates. Benazir was safe, a minute later she was injured, another short while later, she was unconscious! Half a minute and the biggest breaking news exploded—Benazir was dead! I sat there, stunned, unable to fully process what had just happened. Was it possible? Could it have truly happened?
Yes, it could. Anything is possible in a country like Pakistan. Is there any reason why it should be a sovereign nation any more? No other country in the world has perhaps successfully manufactured so much terror and so many terrorists as Pakistan. The real anxiety now is what would happen if a madman there manages to get his hands on nuclear bombs. They would incinerate the world within the blink of an eye!
Benazir had written to me twice this very month. I replied to the first letter quite some time later, suspicious as I had been regarding who had truly written it. Why would she, in her busy schedule, write to an apolitical person such as me? Especially since in the secret political playbook of the subcontinent, supporting me was akin to losing Muslim votes. I was afraid she would be in danger if people got to know she had been in correspondence with me. This was the first time in my life that I had received a letter from a political luminary. My first thought on seeing the Hotmail address had been that this was a prank or a nefarious plot to cause me harm. I never mentioned the letter to my captors, with whom I usually talk about everything, about every single thing I do or think. I wrote a reply to the first letter after a couple of days had passed, a simple answer expressing my gratitude. Within two days, the second one had arrived. I did not even reply to that. Even if I could have come to terms with the fact that a big political leader would write to me via Hotmail, I could not come to terms with her use of ‘Sonia’. Being a politician herself, would she call another by their first name instead of referring to her as Mrs Sonia Gandhi or simply Sonia Gandhi? I was convinced this could not have been Benazir and that someone was pulling a fast one on me. What I could not reconcile was why someone would go to such lengths to crack such a joke. Benazir Bhutto never got a reply from me to her second letter because she had been guilty of calling Sonia Gandhi by her first name.
These are the letters. They still make me waver between believing for one instant that Benazir had written to me and then immediately thinking she had not. Perhaps she had truly written the letters. They are hardly eight or nine days old and I had surely been wrong in not replying to the second one. However, the letters do not really matter at the end of the day. The woman had been speaking against terrorism only a few minutes ago. She finished her speech, walked off the stage and got into her car. The car took off and moments later she was shot dead and a suicide bomb was detonated. How could the assailants have come so close to her car? They could because Benazir did not have the sort of strict security detail that was made available for Pervez Musharraf, the President of Pakistan.
First letter:
Dear Ms. Taslima Nasreen,
I have been impressed by your courage and determination in the face of such backwardness and fundamentalism. I was not able to contact you before due to my pressing engagements at home. I would extend my unflinching support to you. I have contacted Sonia and have urged her to provide you with all legal avenues of protection. I was saddened to know that you had to make amends in your book. Your prose and poetry have been an integral part of my collection and I would like it to bloom further with fresh and bold ideas like yours. Keep up the struggle but please remember that sometimes discretion is the better part of valor.
With warm regards,
Benazir Bhutto
Chairperson—Pakistan People’s Party
Second letter:
Dear Ms. Taslima Nasreen,
I am so glad that you are fine. I know what it is like to live under the puritanical yoke of our backward looking societies. It is like trying to find fresh oxygen in a room filled with smoke. I hope you reach a safe and functional destination soon. I am sure Sonia will chalk out something for your safety. Congress should enhance its liberal image by extending all support to you.
Remember dear, home is where your human soul finds resonance.
Wishing you all the best.
Sincere regards,
Benazir Bhutto
Chairperson—Pakistan People’s Party
I have heard Zardari is a complete idiot. I have heard many people wonder how an educated woman like her could have married a corrupt fool like him. Hadn’t I married someone like that too, someone evil and stupid? Anyone can make mistakes. The difference between Benazir and me was that I had divorced all the senseless elements from my life while Benazir hadn’t. Besides, Benazir had made many compromises with the radicals for the sake of votes, while I have never agreed to any settlements with fundamentalists, regardless of what has been at stake.
28 December
‘Taslima Nasrin, the fearless, ingenuous, renowned Bengali writer, has been living under solitary house arrest in Delhi for quite some time. Despite having had her work translated into numerous regional and most of the major international languages, Taslima’s mother language is Bengali and it is in this language that her true literary might is evident. She has been banished from Bangladesh due to her fearless admission of the truth, due to her unyielding stance that art is simply not just for art’s sake. With this in mind, she has always been an advocate of larger social and cultural transformations, and investing both processes with ideals of freedom, equality, justice and morality. For her, language is but a wondrous tool that she uses to contest limits set by human hands, and to inspire the oppressed with renewed hope.’—Shibnarayan Ray
The statement by the intellectuals has finally been published. Sheela Reddy has written the statement using various things I had told her, especially during some of my most vulnerable moments. I feel deeply hurt by what she has done. Is this why she never shared the piece with me before it was published? She knew I would have refused. Authors Khushwant Singh and Arundhati Roy, director Shyam Benegal, playwright Girish Karnad, M.A. Baby and Vinod Mehta (the editor of Outlook)—only these few have signed the document. Sheela had told me a number of people would be signing. They should have written their own statement. What they have published simply makes it seem that the fight for the freedom of thought and expression is my fight alone. I had not expressed those qualms to her for them to be put in the declaration! If the authorities decide to come and raze this safe house to the ground because of my apparent complaints against the government, who will come to my aid? I have
been depressed the whole day because of all this and more.
I cannot forget Benazir’s death either. Today the Al-Qaeda has accepted the responsibility for the assassination. Will they kill me similarly one day? Back in Bangladesh when Al-Qaeda had yet to become a name, when there was no Osama bin Laden to terrify the world, there had been a rumour that a group of Bangladeshi Taliban militants, having trained under Osama in Afghanistan, were planning to kill me. Soon, Osama became a well-known name and the militants forgot all about me preferring bigger targets, sparing my life in the process. The Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami was on the rise then in Bangladesh and one of their first demands had been to ask for my head. Now they are notorious throughout the world as HuJi, a leading terrorist outfit based out of Bangladesh. Not just in their native country, the HuJi is responsible for quite a few local acts of terror in India too, which have claimed numerous lives.
Will a radical Islamic terrorist organization come and kill me one of these days? I try not to believe it, but I cannot help but morbidly anticipate the bullet passing through my heart or the suicide bomb tearing me apart. Perhaps that is how I will die, one way or the other. But does that mean I have to hide in a hole like vermin, waiting for it to happen? If I have to die, does it mean I cannot live now?
At night I read online the statement made by the imam of the Tipu Sultan Mosque. The imam, accompanied by Idris Ali, had called a press conference to declare that were I to return to Kolkata, the city would be set ablaze—that neither did the police have as many bullets, nor did they have jails big enough to contain the Muslims. They have not taken kindly to Jyoti Basu’s comments and they do not want me back in Kolkata. Apparently, my crimes have not been absolved by simply deleting the offensive sections from Dwikhandito. I would have to apologize for every single insulting thing I have ever written against Islam before reading the kalimas and being rechristened. Idris Ali too has joined the fray, declaring proudly that a horde of Muslims would descend on to the streets if I return to the city.
Which country am I living in? Is this Pakistan or Bangladesh?
Had they wished to, could the CPI(M) and the Congress not have been able to handle these religious fanatics? It is common knowledge that the imam’s loyalties are with the CPM, while Idris Ali will do whatever the Congress tells him to do. However, has either party said anything to them in censure? No one has condemned their actions! Rumour has it that these people are being used instead to stir further trouble, and to cause riots to ensure that I do not return to Kolkata. In one fell swoop, it takes care of the anxiety of alienating the Muslim vote bank.
The Congress leaders visited Idris Ali in police custody, the same man they had expelled from their party for his complicity in the 21 November incidents. Not only has he been accepted back into the party, it has been done with a fair bit of pomp and show. If this is how it is, if this is how people like him are going to be encouraged to do whatever they desire, is it really strange that he should issue such public threats?
29 December
How did I spend the entire day? No, I did not do anything. I spent it doing nothing. I do not see my situation as being under house arrest. When someone is under house arrest, at least visitors are allowed even though the person might not be allowed to leave the country. If I wish to leave the country, they will gladly drive me to the airport.
I do not call this a jail either. In jails too, there are visiting hours which I do not have the luxury of here. Jails have an address; I do not. Those who are incarcerated know when their sentence is supposed to end. I have no idea when my term ends.
This sort of a ‘safe house’ is usually reserved for notorious criminals, for the police to be able to use any number of extrajudicial methods to extract information out of them. However, even criminals are not kept for as long as they have kept me, despite having committed no crime, nor having hidden anything they would need to extract. When I am asked about phone calls, about the conversations I have had, I hide nothing from my captors. I cannot imagine a scenario where someone eavesdrops on someone else’s conversation. However, a number of friends have told me without a shadow of doubt that my phone calls are being monitored. Since then I have tried to find out the truth myself. Gradually, I have realized that whenever a call is transferred to me, the voice I hear is usually quite a few decibels lower than when my captors talk to me over the telephone. Is that what a wired phone sounds like?
Am I being kept under watch or under house arrest? The overlords have already assured everyone that I am not being kept confined to the safe house. Not that anyone will be able to come and verify how I have been kept. It is impossible to reach me and no one would ever know. I would probably perish here, my corpse abandoned to rot. I cannot explain to anyone why I have been imprisoned, or in fact, how it has been done; it’s not as if I understand it all too well. Sumit Chakraborty (of Mainstream), Sheela Reddy and others call me regularly. They are so much more aware than me and so I ask them all my questions. I had once asked Sheela Reddy why I was being kept here instead of being allowed to return to Kolkata. She had glibly replied that it was meant to exert mental trauma on me to force me to leave India. ‘But they have declared in Parliament that it is the nation’s custom to give shelter to guests!’ I had continued with a catch in my voice, ‘I have done nothing wrong!’ ‘You have committed an offence.’ ‘What offence?’ ‘You have provoked the fundamentalists,’ Reddy had replied with a mysterious smile.
Why subject me to psychological torture? What is the use of this charade? They might as well drag me by the hair to the airport and dump me there. I would have no choice but to leave. Besides, if my visa is not extended this February, I will have to leave regardless.
I asked them to bring me cigarettes, which I had quit nearly four years back. By asked, I mean I gave money to the person who brings me my food. He will get me cigarettes the next time he comes around. For the past four years, I could not even stand the smell of cigarettes. Now amidst all this emptiness, will cigarettes be able to lessen my pain a little bit? We will have to wait and see, though whatever has to happen must happen in front of my captors—my movements, conversations, pauses, everything is monitored by them. The only things they cannot survey, or smell, touch or record, are my emotions.
My captors are always here, their duty spanning all twenty-four hours. They live in the rooms adjacent to mine and the ones on duty leave the next day to be replaced by new ones. Thus, the wheels turn, day and night. I have developed warm and cordial equations with almost all of them. They are all quite courteous, sympathetic and polite, normal people like me. I am privy to their joys and their sorrows but I can never know what they actually do or what their last names are.
I cried again today. I called Abdul Gaffar Choudhury45 to request him to use his contacts, if any, in the government to help me get back to Bangladesh. I told him I was willing to give in to any demand. My country, where I have been born and raised, where my parents and my family reside, do I not have a right to go back there? For how long must I roam from one country to the next? Unfortunately, Gaffar Choudhury could give me no reassurance.
I can no longer stand this captive life. I can no longer live here. My telephones have been tapped, unseen strangers eavesdrop on all my conversations, perhaps finding joy in my tears and in the knowledge that I am contemplating leaving this country. Why are people so heartless? Why do they not show even the smallest sliver of kindness to a helpless person?
I feel myself gradually breaking, my dreams slowly crumbling to dust, and the ground slithering away from under me. Where can I go? Without my home, without India, I have no ground to stand on.
I spoke to Shankha Ghosh but even he could not give me any hopeful news. While on the phone, I could not hold back my tears. Why was I crying? I do not remember ever crying like that. I had cried after hearing about my mother’s deteriorating health but that was the last time. After what seems like ages, Panchu called too. He told me that no one knew how exactly I have been kept. Eve
ryone is convinced that I am well. Not a single person has even the faintest idea how I have been, and what shackles have been put on my feet. Panchu told me this was nothing short of barbaric, that I was not a victim of fanaticism but of state-sponsored terrorism.
A strange fear seems to have taken hold of me. If the fundamentalists had not railed against me, the government would perhaps not have bothered with me at all. The overlords can punish the fundamentalists if they wish to; or they can covertly encourage their activities. The latter approach obviously harms me. Till date, all my misfortunes—losing my home, my nation, my world, my people, my friends and my family—have been wrought on me by the State and not the zealots. It is the state’s representatives who have expelled me from my home, who have cast me into a mire of insecurity, and thrust this life of emptiness upon me.
I do not know if there is any true difference between fundamentalists and those who pander to them.
30 December
‘Taslima has been advised to be careful, to avoid saying something that might offend or hurt someone. Then why is this honest advice being imparted only to her, why is it not being shared with the fundamentalists too? The long-term, in fact even the short-term, consequences of this bias can only be devastating. There are always people who get upset when someone speaks something contrary to the majoritarian opinion. Once upon a time many devout Europeans were deeply offended by the assertion that the earth revolved round the sun. Every new strand of knowledge offends someone to begin with. Taslima has managed to establish her human identity way above her communitarian or religious one. She deserves all our respect for precisely this reason. Let us reserve for her nothing but a cordial and steadfast welcome.’—Amlan Dutta
Exile Page 19
