Suddenly, struggling to keep afloat in a miasma of self-contempt, a voice spoke to me. It whispered in my ear that the comments about the Vedas may not have been mine but the comments criticizing Islam had definitely been. What was the book about at the end of the day? About the Vedas or about the position of women in Islamic society? In a tired voice I replied, the writing was mine and it was about the world around me. That is why they wish to punish you, not Sukumari, the voice whispered again. I also noticed that my previously bright and lively milieu had undergone a massive change. The ones who used to appreciate my writing, who used to say I was writing well, were now finding many faults in it. Obviously, all of this was because I had won a major prize. Writers who won prizes were meant to aim for a particular level of quality; they were busy judging if my writing had been able to reach up to that and obviously I was losing. The Ananda Puraskar transported me to a strange new space where I found myself completely alone, as if someone had put me along with my award inside a safe and locked it, and then thrown away the key. It was becoming increasingly difficult for me to breathe.
At the time when the excitement around me was at its peak in Calcutta, and the new edition of Nirbachito Kolam had been published and was doing exceedingly well, the news broke that I had plagiarized. It rose like a dust storm in one nation and did not take long to crash across the border. The report in Bichinta was published verbatim in the journals of Calcutta. For the anti-Anandabazar brigade this was the time to make hay. Even though not many things happened, there were a few notable repercussions of the ‘Stolen from Sukumari!’ piece. Feminist writer Maitreyi Chattopadhyay took up the plagiarism issue vocally. She raised questions about why I had stolen from Sukumari and why I had not included the proper citations in the book. Shibnarayan Roy wrote in response to her accusations that columns in the daily newspaper did not require citation and that the question could have been considered valid only if it had been about a scholarly research article. He also wrote a long piece in Anandabazar boldly stating that rumours were not going to be effective in taking away the edge and sharpness of my words. At least that was what happened in Calcutta.
In Bangladesh, they continued with the name-calling for a while longer and then applied themselves to finding out exactly in which parts of the book I had insulted the Quran and the hadith. Ultimately, a legal case was lodged against the publishers of the book, and also against the publishers and editors of the journals I used to write for. My books were burnt in public yet again and bookshops received warnings of dire consequences and severe violence if they continued to sell them. Someone wrote in Inquilab that I ought to be hanged. Hanged! Well, that was not anything new! Usually people called for corrupt politicians to be hanged during radical political rallies. That did not necessarily translate into an actual hanging, it was usually a manifestation of suppressed anger . . . or so I kept telling myself. Despite everything I could not get rid of the unease that had settled at the pit of my stomach.
When I used to write about the oppression of women everyone was fine with my writing. The moment I had tried to delve down to the root of the oppression and spoken out against religion, the appreciation dried up. And this was not just the fundamentalist faction. I am talking about the ones who did not pray five times a day, did not observe the roza, the men who used to shave and wear suits and call themselves progressive, the women who used to shun the headscarf, mix with other men, dabble in music and culture, and above all else, those who had been women’s rights activists for the longest time and had instituted organizations and committees. Even they were shocked beyond measure at my boldness because I had dared to insult their religion. As long as I had been writing about the fanatics it had been fine, but why had I dragged the whole religious angle into it? How was religion to blame? Even my erstwhile supporters turned against me. The only people still left on my side were the ones who did not believe in religion, who were working towards equality between the sexes and actively fighting against superstitions and communal politics.
AS, a writer and intellectual among others, had established a booming business of abuse directed at me. Numerous anti-Taslima articles by him were being published in newspapers. I had met AS through R who had been a big fan of the man. AS had a distinctly spectral appearance; the first time we met I had asked R, ‘Why does he look like that?’
‘Look like what?’
‘Don’t you see? He looks ghostly.’
In response to my heedless comment R had told me, ‘There are few men in this country as learned as AS.’ There had been enough reason for R’s admiration; AS had been instrumental in helping R get his first book published, so R had been devoted to him regardless of how he looked. There were rumours galore that AS was being paid by Libyan agents for his vocal pro-Islam stance but R had paid no heed to such discussion. AS had a lot of connections in many different foreign embassies, especially in the German embassy. He had even translated Goethe’s Faust into Bengali.
I had met AS even after R and I had broken up, primarily at Ityadi, and he had invited me over to his place. One day he suddenly took up translating my poems and praised them so much that it gave me quite a scare. The translator of Faust was praising my poetry! He had told me that poetry like mine had not been written in Bengali previously and my poems ought to be translated in many other foreign languages across the globe. His ultimate aim had been to publish a book of his translations of my poems. Such was his ardour that it never ceased to amaze me how much his views about me had changed since then. This enormous leap from praise to abuse was indeed a conundrum to me.
After the Ananda Puraskar was announced the rebukes reached new heights. Anandabazar and Desh had first offered the prize to the Bangla Academy but the Academy had turned them down. When I was nominated for the award AS wrote: ‘Taslima is nothing. Her entire thing is flippant and deceitful. Since she has been writing against Muslim society Anandabazar has chosen to turn the spotlight on her . . . In a certain village two elders always contested the elections against each other every year. Once, to tarnish his opponent’s image, one of the elders appointed his own maid as the contestant against the other elder. I feel that’s what the Anandabazar has done. Since the Bangla Academy refused the prize, piqued and upset, they chose Taslima for the prize as a slap on the face of the Academy.’
At a time when I was surrounded on all sides by zealots and scoundrels with their spiteful accusations threatening to engulf me, someone much bigger than them, Shamsur Rahman, the greatest poet in the country, wrote an article in my defence. In a piece called ‘Long live Taslima’s columns’, Rahman argued:
She has whipped our patriarchal, backward, moth-eaten society time and again, shaken the walls of many a monolith, never backed down in the face of religious conservatism, prejudice and brutality, and never minced her words either. I feel no shame in confessing that I am not as brave as Taslima Nasrin. There are many things I truly believe in which I want to say aloud, but I refrain from doing so because I am afraid of the perpetually blind, privileged feudal oligarchs and their touts. This gnaws at me bit by bit, I feel ashamed because of my weakness . . .
About my poetry he remarked:
Many women in our society do not allow their own unique personalities to ever fully develop. Censorious howls and admonishments from all around seek to perpetuate this. This society has failed to grasp the reality that women are as much part of the human experience as men. Since Taslima cannot seem to find a way to adjust to this status quo she rebels and threatens to cast off her chains and even calls for others to do the same.
Not just Shamsur Rahman, many veterans like Jahanara Imam, Rashid Karim, Najim Mahmud and Majharul Islam wrote in my favour. From West Bengal, stalwarts like Sankha Ghosh, Bhabatosh Dutta, Ketaki Kusari Dyson, Shibnarayan Roy, Ananda Bagchi, Maitreyi Chattopadhyay, Bijoya Mukhopadhyay and Sutapa Bhattacharya too were discussing my writing in their journals and magazines. They called my writing fantastic, brave and uncompromising, and even went as far as to c
all me a rare voice of protest.
Sanat Kumar Saha of Rajshahi University wrote:
Taslima Nasrin is one of our most remarkable contemporary writers and Nirbachito Kolam is one of the most remarkable books right now. It’s also the book that’s left the guards and hit-men and goons that patrol society foaming at the mouth.
All of this support was unexpected. It was too much even for me. Swanan Abritti Sangha, the poetry club of Rajshahi University, had invited me once; Sanat Kumar Saha was one of the authors connected to the group. The club had felicitated me and renowned writer Hasan Azizul Haque had welcomed me with a bouquet of flowers before saying many kind words about me, sweeping me off my feet in a wave of adulation. Afterwards, when they had requested me to say a few words I had racked my brain and come up empty. No words were on my tongue, no smart lines about literature, culture, politics or society, and despite being aware that the audience wished to hear me say something suitably stern and fiery, I had had to disappoint them with my dazed silence.
But the day I had recited poetry on the university grounds in front of the Shabash Bangladesh sculpture of the twin muktijoddhas, my voice rang out loud and clear. Truly, I could have read poetry tirelessly all day if only someone had asked me to do that. There was no dearth of intellectuals in Rajshahi University and neither was there a dearth of Islamic student bodies. The students of the latter were always a threat to others, killing progressive students in cold blood or slicing their veins to debilitate them. There was a constant hissing sound I could hear over my shoulder, new terrors lurking in the shadows and waiting for a chance to pounce.
Sanat Kumar wrote that when I had been on stage reading my poems
an uncouth feeling of dread settled upon those that had gathered . . . I could hear my heart beat in anticipation, as if something horrid could happen any moment . . . I could spy a few pockets where fanatics lurked, waiting for a chance to regurgitate all the hatred and bile . . . In the faces of such people one could clearly see the ravages of their naked greed and the hatred and rejection in their eyes. It was as if they were waiting for a chance to violently attack any form of dissent and tear it to shreds.
No, I was not violently attacked. I read my poems and got off the stage unharmed. During my stay at Rajshahi I stayed at Nazim Mahmud’s house. Mahmud was a lively individual, keenly interested in my work as well as me. Some people never age, always managing to retain their youthful vigour, and Mahmud was one such person. He showed me around the university campus and even invited me to his house for dinner. Despite the wave of support for me Sanat was still not satisfied.
The just society Taslima dreams of, for which we must all be grateful to her, we have not been able to properly thank her for it. We only show our solidarity and gratitude with immense hesitation and apprehension and then take our leave. We know fully well that is our limit.
Not that I ever got the feeling that there was no love for me among the people! In fact, I was acutely aware that whatever I had was beyond all my expectations, much more than I deserved. It was true that when I was being abused I was ready for that abuse as if it was due to me, but whenever someone praised me I could not help but be surprised. I understood well that praise left me feeling mortified, uncomfortable and uncertain, so unprepared was I for it.
The debate raged on for and against me. The ones against me were decidedly more in number, their pens sharper, more spirited and brimming with discontent. I also noticed that the tag ‘popular’, which was hitherto associated with my name, had been replaced by ‘controversial’, because apparently my writing caused controversy the likes of which no other author’s did. Whatever I wrote affected people in some way or the other; either it made them laugh, or cry, or it made them think and get angry. Everyone who read it had something or the other to say.
Sometimes the reactions crossed over from the realm of the written word and reached me with teeth and talons bared. Mir Nurul Islam wrote a column about me titled ‘A Different Poet with a Different Point-of-View’ in Banglar Bani.
I have never met the person we are quarrelling over. I have only heard the most obscene things against her. Such words ring with derision and ridicule . . . but they lack . . . any actual critique of her literary merits. Such words only seek to produce a spicy mix of personal gossip and information . . . as if the female body has been . . . served on a platter to meat-lovers. Taslima Nasrin has been vocal against exactly this mentality and her pen has relentlessly sought conflict to make the resistance vigilant against such savagery and malice.
As was my habit, I read the columns written against me with more obvious interest than the ones in support of me. Dainik Sangram, Inquilab, Dinkal, Milaat and Banglabazar Patrika were all up in arms against me, of which Sangram, Inquilab and Milaat were known fundamentalist papers. While Motiur Rahman Chowdhury, the editor of Banglabazar Patrika, was not a bigot, he never hesitated from toeing the fundamentalist line when it came to me. Previously the two of us had never been at odds but the cracks began to show when Chowdhury earnestly began a campaign to ban the Calcutta-based journal Desh in Bangladesh.
In an article in Desh Nirad C. Chaudhuri had referred to Bangladesh as ‘so-called Bangladesh’. Meeting Chaudhuri a few years later I had asked him the reason for his use of the term and he had explained to me with a smile that all four regions of east, west, north and south Bengal together used to be called Bangladesh. East Bengal had no special right to use the entire name especially because the western half had never laid claim to it. I had heard Chaudhuri out.
Just like that I had heard Motiur Rahman out too when the latter alleged that Chaudhuri’s phrasing was a direct attack against the sovereignty of independent Bangladesh. I had accepted the logic but what I had not gone along with was what Chowdhury tried doing after that. He started a campaign to prohibit the import of Desh from Calcutta, despite the authorities of Desh apologizing for the use of the term ‘so-called’. Because of his proximity and connections within the government, much to the dismay of the subscribers of Desh, one fine day all copies of the magazine were confiscated across the country and an embargo was placed on its import. Desh was a superior and well-regarded literary magazine; after this step there was hardly anything left for most of us to read.
Considering how since the partition much of Bangladesh’s politics had been premised upon fanning anti-India sentiments, one political party launched an attack against the other accusing the latter of selling the nation out to our influential neighbours. Was this conflict truly for the future of Bangladesh? There were hardly any comparisons between the two nations; it was like making comparisons between the might of an elephant and a fly. Even if the two halves of Bengal could not get along, was it too much to ask that our literary and cultural exchanges remain unchallenged? Was that not beneficial to both Bengals? Because of the so-called offences committed by the word ‘so-called’, Desh was prohibited; I failed to understand whom that would benefit ultimately.
I was so angry by the actions taken by the government that I wrote a column where, while trying to get to the root of Rahman’s anger against Desh, I unearthed that Chowdhury had asked for advertisements of the Puja special Desh for his Banglabazar Patrika but had been turned down in favour of Ittefaq and Inquilab. His so-called annoyance with the Desh–Anandabazar people was ultimately because of rejected advertisements and not some so-called insult to the sovereignty of Bangladesh. Ever since that article Chowdhury’s watchful gaze remained trained on me, with articles appearing against me in his paper almost twice a day.
The character of the daily took a turn for the better when Motiur Rahman declared bankruptcy and sold the newspaper to Yahya Khan. Thanks to MM I had previously met the literature enthusiast and garments merchant Khan, and our acquaintance had remained premised on sudden meetings. He was an admirer of my work, and as it happened with many admirers, he was always eager to lend me a helping hand. I never asked him for a favour for myself but I had used his offer to get a job for Nirmalendu Goon a
s the literary editor of Banglabazar Patrika. Though the public face of ownership of the newspaper was Zakariah Khan, the real owner was Yahya, and Motiur Rahman Chowdhury was still the editor. In Chowdhury’s office we had sat and discussed a salary of 5000 taka for Goon and only after that had I sipped my tea! Goon was a remarkable poet and it was their privilege they had appointed him as their literary editor; I had done nothing unfair. Through Khan I had also managed to get a factory job for another member of the Goon family, one of Geeta’s younger sisters—another one of those things for which I could not help but feel a twinge of satisfaction.
The protectors of Islam were relentless in their sustained rebuke. However, they were not interested in producing counter-arguments and resorted directly to the ‘fundamental truth’ as laid out in the Quran and the hadith. Despite the complete lack of logic in such truth Abu Faisal wrote:
It is not academic honesty on Nasrin’s part to expound on Islam’s perspective on women by basing her argument on a twisted version of the faith, just to protect her own family. Nasrin has committed this dishonesty almost everywhere, and spread confusion in her wake. Nothing will happen to Islam ultimately because of her writings. Worse attacks have come on our faith from diverse corners which Islamic scholars have always combatted and are still capable of.
Even though he was sure no harm would come of me, the Islamic fundamentalists were not able to keep me out of their concerns. The attacks were such as if I had taken a knife to Islam and if I were not stopped it would spell doom for the faith.
In Milaat a diary entry was published:
A female columnist of our country believes that it was cunning men who had instituted religion to protect their own interests in this essentially patriarchal society and consequently God himself was misogynist. Recently she has written an article in this good-for-nothing daily column—by collating a few disjointed and unrelated lines and verses from various religious books like the Bible, the Tripitaka, the Vedas, the Upanishads, and even the holy Quran Sharif—to further add fuel to her macabre and abnormal beliefs and influence other women, in a nefarious plot to break out of the shackles placed around them by their respective religions. Of course this is not the first time that this crazy and petty writer, like an omnivorous crow, has deliberately poked and prodded at the decaying and the wasted bit of society to pollute the air around us. I have long noticed her strong aversion towards religious customs and rituals and her boundless animosity towards men. I have always been told that she is a highly educated woman and a doctor by profession, besides which she is a poet too. A relative of mine drew my attention to a recent so-called poem written by this anti-religious man-hating female poet. In one of the lines of that ‘poem’, she mentions that holding her hand means certain death. It seemed to me that since her childhood, or perhaps girlhood, she had always wanted someone whose hand she could hold. But her own experiences in the matter have cured her of any further interest in the matter. Who knows! But all I can say is this, till the day her body remains some or the other hand she will have to grab hold of. If she were to fall into the mud or into a ditch wouldn’t she have to hold someone’s hand to climb out? Seeing the esteemed columnist’s state I am firmly convinced that she is at present up to her nose in filth. If she wishes to extricate herself from such a scenario she has to hold someone’s extended hand no matter how much she detests it, and if she can hold the right hand it will not only clean the filth off her but might also end up saving her . . . you can contribute majorly to the women’s movement if you can find the right hand to hold. I believe you truly feel pain every day when faced with the situation of women in society, you have a unique point of view and your writing too is very attractive. You are a good writer. It would have been so great if you did not have such lopsided views on religious matters.
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