Delhi was desolate. I had only Minu for company, the one creature that had always been dependent on me her entire life. I often had to leave her in Delhi for my trips abroad. Though the only ones I attended were the ones I could not refuse—honorary doctorates from Belgium and the University of Paris, honorary citizenships from a number of cities in the West, a seminar on human rights at the European Parliament, or the Humanist Congress in Norway. Even with these, I tried spending as little time as possible, always eager to fly back to my cat. I hated leaving her alone; we had become so fond of each other. People who say cats are selfish creatures that cannot love haven’t met Minu. Minu has always loved me, quite ardently, in her own way. We used to spend days with each other, talking about our love. Rich people in India always have dogs in their homes, never cats. Cats they fear; cats are inauspicious. So, there was no one in Delhi to take care of Minu, just as there had not been anyone in Kolkata either. I used to train people before leaving Minu with them, but in Delhi I did not even have that luxury. Jaiprakash Agarwal from Burdwan used to take care of Minu in my absence, but his relationship with her had become progressively hostile. One reason for that could have been the fact that he used to believe nearly all the extant superstitions in India regarding cats. There was no way I could have asked anyone else, though it is not as if I did not know anyone. It is just that the acquaintances had never really deepened into friendship; perhaps we had both been lazy, though that laziness had never been an impediment in Kolkata. Whether I wished to or not, I had been surreptitiously excommunicated; or perhaps I was simply being a loner, preferring my own tiny world far removed from everyone else.
I may have been born in the Indian subcontinent, but I was not allowed any freedom here. It was only in Europe or the West that I could speak freely, where I could talk about my convictions, and engage in debates and conversations. Not that one could discuss religion freely everywhere in Europe either. There would always be a lot of security, either on the stage itself or within the auditorium for sure. The world was increasingly becoming an unsafe place, with the intolerant ascendant almost everywhere. The only time I attended an event that was seemingly outside mainstream western society, I had to walk off the stage midway. This happened at Banga Sammelan, an annual cultural conference of Bengalis, organized by the NRI Bengali communities of America. I had not been too keen on attending the conference, but had been forced to accede to the repeated requests of the organizers. A section of the audience, a crowd of devoted war-loving patriots, took offence to some of the poems which were about America’s intrusive foreign policy and warmongering. I was booed off the stage.
Such incidents happen whenever people expect only that part of my story which is about Islam; they always expect the anti-Islamic Taslima Nasrin. Whenever I wish to speak about the other half, about my concerns for the Muslims who are dying like cattle in this false war, they wish to hush me up. I have always faced such petty conflicts when I have tried to critique the myriad other wrongs being committed against humanity. Attempting to distance myself from such pettiness has gradually pushed me far away from people. There are people who are different, but I hardly ever bump into any of them.
A series of messages about me, interchanged between the US consulate and Washington DC, were made public by Wikileaks. Here are two pieces from one such conversation, titled ‘Author Taslima Nasreen: Pawn in Political Web’55 from 28 November 2007:
11. (SBU) After Nandigram, Nasreen represented a convenient foil for both the CPM and fundamentalist Muslim leaders in Kolkata. From their actions (or lack thereof), it is clear
NEW DELHI 00005119 003 OF 003
India’s main political parties could not care less about Nasreen or her writing beyond how their parties’ reactions to events play to voters. Not wanting to offend the Muslim vote bank, neither Congress nor CPM has officially supported an extension of Nasreen’s visa. Both parties want the situation to go away. The BJP will ensure that will not happen by raising the issue in Parliament to batter both the CPM and Congress and to burnish their own tarnished secular credentials. The BJP has seized the high ground and will milk the controversy for all its worth. For Taslima, the last week has been chaotic, but will no doubt provide ample material for her next book. As for the CPM, the public are increasingly aware that their lofty rhetoric about looking out for the little guy rings hollow, since they have stooped recently not only to kill peasants at Nandigram but to abandon a female author in order to pander to vote banks. Surely they could have found space for one woman in a teeming city of 16 million? MULFORD
12. (SBU) Comment: Even though few in the Indian Muslim community are familiar with Nasreen’s work, there is a general sense among the Indian Muslims community that her writings have somehow insulted or disparaged Islam. The Muslim groups’ public opposition is a reflection of this unhappiness with Nasreen. There are also politics at play. The Communist Party of India Marxist (CPM) had originally driven Nasreen out of Kolkata to divert attention from the CPM’s central role in the Nandigram violence, as well as to win favor from Muslims who were main victims of the Nandigram brutality (ref E). The Muslim groups have put pressure once again on the UPA government to act more decisively on Nasreen. Vote bank politics has been an important factor in the Nasreen controversy. India’s political parties are ready to use any target of opportunity available to pander to voting groups in preparation for the next national election, due before May 2009. The UPA’s hot-cold response in the Nasreen affair illustrates that the Congress Party, the original and still most prolific practitioner of vote bank pandering, is attempting to juggle its national image and the Muslim vote. End comment. MULFORD
Around the same time, Joy Goswami, one of Bengal’s leading poets, was in the midst of dedicating his book of poetry, Amar Shyamshri Ichhe, Swagata Ichheguli (To All My Desires, Welcome and Unwelcome) to me. In fact, one of the poems, dedicated to ‘Taslima Nasrin, Beacon of Our Times’, had been about me:
What if we had to fight your battles?
We stood apart, in our safe corners
To try and find all the faults we could,
Never taking another step forward,
Never touching the flames.
The rope was hanging from the window,
But you chose to remain in the burning house,
Because your fight had more life than my life did.
Now I am spent.
I sit and wait for them,
To grab me by the scruff of my neck,
Drag me to the field and leave me there to rot.
I won’t fight back,
Nor will I stand my ground.
If you have been a friend, o brave one,
Simply wish me this,
That I may die peacefully,
With my head still in the sand.
Many poets wrote poems for me in 2007–2008. Many books and journals were published, compiling essays, short stories and poems, written by people demanding my return to Kolkata. People marched on the streets with posters and banners, and protested with hunger strikes. 22 November was commemorated for some time as a mark of protest against the injustices committed by the State. Gradually, everything began to fade from public memory. The elections came around again, and Mamata Banerjee’s historic victory effectively ended thirty-four years of Left rule in West Bengal. Except for a couple of very close people, everyone forgot about me. It was almost as if I had died, and it was no longer important to talk about my return. A Bengali writer’s enforced exile from Bengal could very simply be wiped away from the pages of history.
The earth is but a fragment, the birth and demise of its people insignificant, in the face of the sheer vastness of our ancient universe. The entire expanse of human history is a fleeting instant, a footnote in the history of time. Not a soul in the universe will ever flip through its pages. Is it not enough that even amidst this infinite insignificance, I am still swimming against the surge?
Notes
1. The phonetic sound ‘K’ is als
o the sound of the first Bengali consonant.
2. Syed Shamsul Haque is a celebrated Bangladeshi poet, dramatist and novelist.
3. Sunil Gangopadhyay (1967–2012) was one of the most versatile Bengali writers of his generation. Twice winner of the Ananda Puraskar, one of the most coveted literary prizes for any writer of Bengali, he moved from writing poetry to novels, short stories and plays, even dabbling in journalism, with amazing agility.
4. Humayun Azad (1947–2004) was one of the most influential Bangladeshi writers of his generation. On 12 August 2004, he was found dead in his apartment in Munich, Germany, where he had arrived a week earlier for some research work.
5. Nima Haque is a theatre actress from Bangladesh.
6. Asad Chowdhury (born 11 February 1943) is a poet, writer, translator, radio and TV personality, and cultural activist in Bangladesh. He is a former director of the Bangla Academy, Dhaka.
7. Quoted by Mirza Ahmed Afzal Farooq in ‘Pornography in Literature: The Taslima Nasrin Context’, in the Literary Herald, vol. 1, no. 2 (September 2015), p. 4.
8. Samaresh Majumdar (born 10 March 1942) is a renowned writer from West Bengal who has consistently written for both children and mature readers. He created the character of Arjun for a series of young-adult thrillers featuring the eponymous sleuth, while his novel Kalbela is considered a modern classic.
9. Sonagachi, located near north Kolkata, is reputedly India’s largest red-light area.
10. Subodh Sarkar (born 1958) is a Bengali poet, writer and editor, and a recipient of the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award. His wife, Mallika Sengupta, was also a poet.
11. Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay (born 2 November 1935) is a celebrated Bengali author who has dabbled in a wide variety of genres. He is especially regarded for his contributions to children’s literature.
12. Nabanita Dev Sen (born 13 January 1938) is an award-winning Indian poet, novelist and academic. Both her parents, Narendranath Dev and Radharani Devi, were renowned poets.
13. Bani Basu (born 11 March 1939) is a Bengali author, essayist, critic and poet. She received the prestigious Ananda Puraskar for her famed novel, Maitreya Jataka.
14. Mallika Sengupta (1960–2011) was a Bengali poet and feminist activist, and wife of poet Subodh Sarkar. She passed away due to breast cancer-related complications on 28 May 2011.
15. Gautam Ghosh Dastidar is a Bengali poet.
16. Azizul Haque is a former Naxal leader and a contemporary of Kanu Sanyal, one of the founders of the Naxalite uprising in India. Haque was detained and tortured for a long time during the height of the Naxalbari Movement.
17. Shankha Ghosh (born 6 February 1932) is a Bengali littérateur and critic, and one of the foremost poets in Bengal today.
18. Shibnarayan Ray (1921–2008) was a Bengali thinker, educationist, essayist and literary critic. A radical humanist, Ray is widely known for his writings on the Marxist revolutionary and political theorist Manabendra Nath Roy.
19. Siddhartha Shankar Ray was a prominent barrister and a leading politician of the Indian National Congress. He served as chief minister of West Bengal during the tumultuous Naxal uprising from 1972 to 1977.
20. Begum Rokeya (1880–1932) was a Bengali writer, essayist, philosopher, educationist and social activist. A renowned social activist of her time and an advocate for women’s rights, she is considered a pioneer of the feminist movement in Bengal.
21. Sujato Bhadra is an eminent human rights activist who has also played the role of an interlocutor with the Maoists in West Bengal.
22. Nikhil Sarkar (1932–2004) was a Bengali author, social historian and journalist who was an associate editor with Anandabazar Patrika for which he ran a column called Kalkatar Karcha (The Kolkata Notebook). Under the pseudonym ‘Sripantha’, he wrote numerous books and was awarded the Ananda Puraskar in 1978.
23. Rudraprasad Sengupta (born 31 January 1935) is a Bengali actor, director and cultural critic who has been the driving force behind the celebrated theatre group Nandikar, and one of the leading personalities in Indian theatre.
24. Amlan Dutta (1924–2010) was a Bengali author, radical humanist, economist and educationist. During his long career as a teacher, he served as the pro-vice chancellor of the University of Calcutta, and vice chancellor of the University of North Bengal and Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan.
25. Prasanta Roy has been a long-time associate of Nasrin and the publisher behind People’s Book Society which has thus far published Nasrin’s work in Bangla and was at the forefront of the Dwikhandito controversy.
26. Manas Ghosh was then a senior journalist with the Statesman.
27. Buddhadeb Basu (1908–74) was one of the most significant literary figures in Bengal of the twentieth century and a major figure in the post-Tagore literary landscape. Also an eminent critic and editor of his time, he is considered a major modernist in Bengali poetry. He won numerous awards, including the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Rabindra Puraskar and the Padma Bhushan.
28. Annada Shankar Roy (1904–2002) was an eminent Bengali essayist and a poet.
29. Sitabhog and mihidana are iconic Bengali sweets famously originating from Burdwan, West Bengal, originally made by Bhairav Chandra Nag, a local sweet-maker, to mark the occasion when Viceroy Lord Curzon visited Burdwan to confer the title of maharaja on then king of Burdwan, Vijaychanda.
30. ‘Don’t let them silence Taslima Nasrin—Stand up for the Sake of Freedom of Expression in India: An SACW compilation of statements and opinions (27 November–6 December 2007)’, www.sacw.net>defendtaslimaDec07
31. http://www.sify.com/youth/fullstory.php?id=14568036
32. ‘Competitive Intolerance’, The Hindu, 5 December 2007.
33. Srotoshini Bhalobasa is Nasrin’s niece, her sister Yasmin’s daughter. Bhalobasa was born on 6 December 1992. In Bangla, bhalobasa is the common noun for love.
34. Tapan Raychaudhuri (1926–2014) was an eminent historian who taught at Oxford University from 1973 to 1992. He was also deputy director of the National Archives of India, a former director of the Delhi School of Economics, and a Padma Bhushan winner.
35. Joy Goswami (born 10 November 1954) is a Sahitya Akademi Award–winning Bengali poet and columnist, widely considered one of the most important poets of his generation.
36. ‘Politics and Play’, Ramachandra Guha, the Telegraph, 8 December 2007.
37. http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article505.html
38. Aparna Sen (born 25 October 1945) is a renowned Bengali actress and film-maker. A leading lady in the 1960s to the 1980s, she has acted in many iconic films such as Aranyer Din Ratri, Jana Aranya and Basanta Bilap. She later moved on to making several critically acclaimed and awarded films like 36 Chowringhee Lane, Parama and Mr & Mrs Iyer, among others.
39. Hameeda Hossain (born 1936) is a prominent academic and human rights activist in Bangladesh, a founding member of the Ain o Salish Kendra and the wife of jurist, statesman and freedom fighter Kamal Hossain.
40. The Ain o Salish Kendra, or Centre for Law and Mediation, is a non-governmental, civil rights and legal aid organization in Bangladesh which regularly consults with Amnesty International.
41. A cleric, usually the imam, who delivers the sermon and leads the prayer.
42. Baitul Mukarram, located in Dhaka, is the national mosque of Bangladesh.
43. ‘Let Her Be’, 22 December 2007, timesofindia.com/edit-page/TODAYS-EDITORIAL-Let-Her-Be/articleshow/2641964.cms
44. ‘Counterpoint’ by Vir Sanghvi in Hindustan Times, 2 December 2007, blogs.hindustantimes.com/counterpoint/2007/12/
45. Abdul Gaffar Choudhury (born 12 December 1934) is a British writer, journalist, columnist, political analyst and poet of Bangladeshi origin. He is the celebrated writer of ‘Amar Bhai’er Rokte Rangano’, the anthem for the Bhasha Andolon.
46. Mahasweta Devi (14 January 1926–28 July 2016) was a social activist and a leading writer. She won numerous awards, including the Sahitya Akademi Award, Padma Vibhushan, Pad
ma Shri and the Ramon Magsaysay Award.
47. Manasij Majumder is a well-known writer and teacher, renowned for a number of books on artists like Sakti Burman, Sunil Das and Bikash Bhattacharjee.
48. Sarat Kumar Mukhopadhyay is a Sahitya Akademi Award–winning Bengali poet who was closely associated, along with his wife Bijoya Mukhopadhyay, with the influential Bengali poetry magazine Krittibas.
49. Dibyendu Palit (born 5 March 1939) is a Sahitya Akademi Award–winning Bengali poet and novelist.
50. Shaoli Mitra is a renowned Bengali theatre personality, and daughter of iconic actors Sombhu Mitra and Tripti Mitra. Bhabaniprasad Chattopadhyay is a Bengali writer and columnist.
51. Shibani Mukhopadhyay is Prasanta Roy’s partner at People’s Book Society.
52. Fakhruddin Ahmed (born 1 May 1940) is a Bangladeshi economist and civil servant who served as the chief adviser to the non-party caretaker government of Bangladesh amidst the political crisis in 2006.
53. Ritu Menon is an Indian feminist activist, writer and publisher. She was co-founder of Kali for Women in 1984 and founder of Women Unlimited thereafter.
54. Steve Lacy (1934–2004) was an American jazz saxophonist recognized as one of the foremost players of the soprano saxophone. In 1999, Steve Lacy composed ‘The Cry’ based on Taslima Nasrin’s poetry. Irene Aebi, a Swiss singer, was Lacy’s wife.
55. ‘Author Taslima Nasreen: Pawn In Political Web’, 28 November 2007, http://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/07NEWDELHI5119_a.html
THE BEGINNING
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