Baharuddin came to me looking for answers, demanding to know why I had written the book. Baharuddin was from Assam and he used to be a teacher of Arabic at a college there. One fine day he had left everything behind and moved to Calcutta, married a Hindu girl called Swati, become father to a son called Lalon, and settled down to live happily or unhappily ever after. He was a writer and poet, had been published too, and I must admit he wrote beautiful prose. He was an atheist through and through and could often be heard loudly abusing religion and those who bothered too much with it. He was also very concerned about the Muslim minorities oppressed by Hindus in West Bengal.
In all, there was no reason why the two of us should have been at odds. We fell apart when Baharuddin realized that right-wing Hindus were using my book to their advantage and he decided I was to blame for it. The one crucial point he missed was who I was writing about and why, and in which country. No matter now left-leaning or how much of an atheist he was, he was still a minority. He had always seen Hindus as oppressors and not the oppressed. When you are not used to something it is difficult to even visualize it in your head. Not because I felt sorry that he had flown all the way over from Calcutta but because I wanted to clear some of the misconceptions he had about Lajja, I agreed to talk to Bahar. There was a debate raging in Aajkaal over the book and the arguments and counter-arguments were at their peak. Not Muslim fundamentalists but progressive leftist writers and politicians of West Bengal were of the opinion that, firstly, I was writing to incite; secondly, I was consciously or unconsciously floating in the tide of right-wing Hindu fundamentalism, the kind that was on the rise in India, and that I was also a victim of an international conspiracy that was working its way through South East Asia; and thirdly, Lajja was a weak novel, shrouded in the fumes of an escapist point of view.
Bahar asked me, ‘You must be deeply bothered by Lajja right now, isn’t it?’
The very first question was successful in putting me off ever so slightly. ‘Strange! Why should I be bothered? I am not bothered at all.’
‘Are you trying to tell me you are not bothered by Lajja or any of your other works?’
‘Yes, that’s what I want to tell you. I am never troubled by what I write. The only things that bother me are my weak descriptions, my immature use of language and my inability to chart the depths of a character.’
‘The book has been made into an issue in Bangladesh by both the mullahs and the government. In West Bengal and in other states of India the BJP is reaping the benefits of your carelessness. Don’t you feel you have just handed a dangerous weapon to the Sangh Parivar?’
‘My first concern is with your use of the word careless. I was not careless while I was writing Lajja. I have accepted that Lajja lacks in structure and is majorly deficient in aesthetics, but there is no problem at all with its content and critique. I have written nothing but the truth. While banning the book not once has the government of Bangladesh said that the information in the book is wrong. If the BJP is trying to take advantage of it it’s their dishonesty and not my book’s fault. The ones who are arguing that I have given a weapon to the Sangh Parivar are simply trying to create confusion in the minds of the people about a book that is only in favour of communal harmony. When they don’t criticize the BJP and the Sangh Parivar but choose to criticize the book and its author instead I can’t help but wonder if they have read the book at all. Is there even a single word in the book in favour of religious fundamentalists? No. And I will say this again, if the Sangh Parivar is using the book for their benefit, it betrays their dishonesty. That burden is not on Lajja or its author. I am also sure they know that Lajja is not speaking on their behalf. “Let the other name of religion be humanity” is written on the first page of the book.’
‘Specific sections from your novel are being reprinted in the RSS mouthpieces Panchyajanya and Organiser. The day the BJP and the VHP decided to distribute the novel to as many households as possible, the very next day the book could be found everywhere in Calcutta, on the roads, the pavements and even the local paan shops. Did anyone take permission to print your novel?’
‘Of course not! I have not allowed any fundamentalist political party to print Lajja; it’s out of the question. Not just Lajja, they don’t have rights to publish any of my books.’
‘Then why aren’t you suing Panchyajanya and Organiser?’
‘My publishers in Calcutta, the ones who have the rights to the book, should be suing them. It is up to them to have the book translated or to allow it to be reprinted. If there are any violations to that they must take legal action. Haven’t they done so already? The police did catch some of the people who were behind the pirated copies, didn’t they?’
‘We feel your novel is causing trouble both for Hindus here and Muslims there.’
‘There are certain problems in what you feel. I have told the story of a progressive, educated, Hindu family of this country in Lajja. The family falls victim to communal violence, where a rationalist and atheist young man gradually transforms into a staunch Hindu, becomes a fundamentalist and gets destroyed in the process. The state destroys him, the government destroys him and gradually mushrooming religious fanaticism destroys him. He is defeated. Many young men in this country are transforming from human beings to Hindus. They are being repeatedly victimized by the state, in educational institutions, workplaces, business and trade, all because of religious discrimination. They are being labelled second-class citizens. Why should I not speak the truth? The truth will always be valued. The ones who make a truth controversial, the fault lies with them and not with the truth. And the ones who blame the truth support the actions of the miscreants. The Hindus getting into trouble here is a bad excuse. Those who like to stay silent for the sake of convenience are responsible for eroding human strength and courage. They are cowards and exploiters. They are the biggest threats to all minority communities. They believe if you point out a wrong it will lead to trouble. The same argument works for the Muslims there.’
‘In the near future if something unpleasant happens because of your novel, what will you do? Will you accept your responsibility?’
‘Why will something unpleasant happen because of Lajja? Something unpleasant will happen because some people want bad things to happen. Lajja is a humanist appeal so that unpleasant things don’t happen any more. So that people can manage to coexist in mutual respect and to help religion truly embrace humanity.’
‘Your novel only has a single point of view. You have given detailed descriptions of riots, rapes, murders and demolition of temples.’
‘Yes, I have. Because these things happened. I have not made anything up.’
‘Why are there no statements made in protest of the riots by rationalist individuals? Is this a conscious omission?’
‘The novel is about the memories, dreams, joys and troubles of one family. I have described the events like how the members of the family saw them happening. The few instances of protest they saw, all those instances are mentioned in Lajja. About the human chain, about the protest march calling for communal harmony, all of it. There are accounts of Muslim boys coming to Suranjan’s aid. Sudhamoy reminds his son Suranjan that the people of the country are coming down to the streets and that they are protesting. So much has been written in the newspapers too and there are so many people vocally resisting injustices. Does every nation possess such strength? Does everyone get the right to protest? Of course there are protests happening here. You know what, the number of secular rational people protesting and voicing their dissent is far lesser in this country than the sheer intensity of communal violence that people had to witness for seven days starting from 7 December. If my account of the dissent had been at par with the level of violence perpetrated I would have been blatantly fabricating facts. You asked me if it was conscious. Yes, I consciously did it. I wish to write the truth. I do not obsess over who will use my words to serve their own ends, who will get it translated, or who will take advantage of it to s
pread slander about me.’
‘We’ve heard and verified that you have corrected and expanded the novel. Have events and characters changed because of that? Should we expect a more nuanced picture of the resistance towards communal violence?’
‘Yes, I have expanded Lajja a little. In essence the story remains the same but a few characters have increased, they have more dialogues and there’s more information on the riots, the pain and the suffering. Whatever resistance was there, I’ve written about that too.’
‘Why write it again?’
‘I had written Lajja within a very small window of time. It was a time when the pain and hurt inside me had been threatening to burst out. Once the book was out I realized there were many literary weaknesses in the text. Can everything be expressed in language? While correcting sentences I thought why not add a few more characters.’
‘We believe your intentions are noble. Do you never feel that by giving in to pressure and a moment’s emotional turmoil you have allowed yourself to be led in the wrong direction? Like how the non-believing Suranjan becomes a fanatic Hindu, abuses Bangladesh, tries to run away from the country and ends up committing a crime like rape. We have never seen such defeatism in your writing before. Are you giving up?’
‘I don’t believe in tricks. I witnessed the communal violence in December with my own eyes. Lajja is not the fruit of a moment’s emotional turmoil. It’s a history of our defeat, an account of our collective shame and all our disgrace. For any sensible and rational person this defeat is excruciatingly tragic. Whether a human being like Suranjan becomes a Hindu or someone like Haider becomes a Muslim, both incidents are equally disgraceful. When I saw religion taking precedence over human beings I felt a responsibility to protest. I have been protesting since long before Lajja. The book is a bold statement against communalism and terrorism. Suranjan abusing Bangladesh in the book is a severe indictment of the gradual transformation of the country from the brave, self-confident, secular nation of the Language Movement and the Liberation War to a communal and Islamic state. Any conscious and thinking individual, be it a K or a Suranjan, has the right to criticize Bangladesh if they find that the foundational ideals of democracy, socialism, equality and Bengali nationalism are slowly eroding from the state machinery. They are criticizing the nation because they have immense love for it.
‘Are you saying they can build the nation but if the nation is about to walk down the wrong path they do not have the right to criticize? A country does not go down a destructive path on its own, a few nasty people drive it down such a road. When these few nasty people instigate the majority to follow them down such a path then the entire country is put into jeopardy and the state doesn’t remain a state any more. Suranjan loves his country. Which is why such a turn of events pains him, angers him. Since this is his motherland he demands security and respect from it. Do I want his failure and his escape; do I condone his rape of a Hindu woman? No, I don’t. Since I don’t want these things to happen I protest his fall and the disasters that befall him. Since I don’t want these things to happen I have to write a book like Lajja.
‘Even I want to ask, why are the Suranjans leaving? Many Hindus from Bangladesh are moving to India and becoming Hindu fundamentalists. Why? Why are talented and loyal citizens like Suranjan feeling forced to leave? Why are they losing the strength and confidence to stay on and fight for what they believe in? That is what I want to know and since the government has no answers to these questions the only thing they can do is ban Lajja; to try and put out the fire raging just below the surface with ash. I don’t believe in defeat, which is why I was forced to write a book like Lajja. Lajja is not a solution, it’s my protest. I was never a defeatist and neither am I one now. I highlight discrimination because I cannot stand to see it. And I won’t stand it either.’
‘Do Hindus truly have so many grievances against Bangladesh? Do they actually abuse it so much?’
‘Suranjan wasn’t like the other Hindus. He did not believe in religious dogma. He was an atheist. But people around him, people with communal objectives, marked him as a Hindu. Suranjan had many dreams regarding his country. But all his dreams shattered and it irrevocably poisoned his heart against his own country. He abused Bangladesh because he was unable to live with the discrimination. Just like there are many Hindus who choose to live with discrimination; they do not have the courage to protest it. You might ask me if I support abuses against Bangladesh. Of course I don’t! But why does a person like Suranjan, who used to love his country, resort to such an end? There must be reasons behind such a transformation. Instead of discussing these reasons how do the words uttered by someone who has been deceived by his own people, someone who is angry, hurt and mad with grief, become a bigger issue?’
‘I believe the entire subcontinent today is suffering from a terrible ailment. Conscience is under erasure. Or it has lost its bearings? And even you are not safe from such confusion, are you?’
‘In Lajja my conscience is absolutely clear. Pure. Unblemished.’
Around a week before this meeting the Sahaba Sainik Parisad of Sylhet had issued a fatwa in my name and Baharuddin referred to that too. ‘Rushdie did not stand by his own writings. He apologized and read the kalma to become a Muslim. Your situation is far more tragic than his. Even the government is not by your side and neither is the opposition. Writers too have taken a vow of silence. Why are you so alone? If your loneliness, as well as pressure from both without and within, forces you to apologize what will you do?’
‘I am not alone. Thousands of my readers are with me. Whatever I write is as unpalatable for the government as it is for the opposition because neither side is willing to rise above religion. Religion is a potent weapon for them. Besides, it’s not true at all that all progressive writers have taken a vow of silence. Many writers as well as a non-partisan cultural coalition have unequivocally condemned the fatwa-loving maulanas of Sylhet. Even after Lajja was banned many writers spoke out against the government’s communal standpoint. The ones who did not never speak on behalf of anything ever and neither do they ever take any risks. Not everyone has the heart to swim against the tide; most prefer to run in the direction in which the wind is blowing. I will never ask for forgiveness. Rushdie did, that was his foolishness. I would rather die than ask for forgiveness.’
‘In case of danger will you leave the country to go and live somewhere else?’
‘Am I in any less danger now? No matter how much more danger is heaped upon me I will not run away from my country. The mullahs have joined forces to demand I be hanged. I am still standing my ground, and I will continue to abide by my ideals.’
‘Don’t you think the hitherto firm ground for resistance in Bangladesh has come under attack? That you have unwittingly provided the Jamaat with a terrible weapon?’
‘No, I don’t think the ground for resistance has come under attack. Even when all avenues are blocked, resistance can erupt from a single point. The Liberation War of 1971 proves that. We, the ones who believe in free thought, rationalism and humanism, are still fighting and our fight won’t stop. The fact that I have provided the Jamaat with a weapon is something even my enemies here are yet to accuse me of. Only you are saying it. Just like that, whatever the fundamentalists are saying about Lajja here, your people are saying the same things over there. We are fighting the Jamaatis who have always been enemies of freedom. Lajja is not a weapon for them to rule with, it’s a weapon against them. Across the country there is a call for the prohibition of the sort of politics that the Jamaat-e-Islami dabbles in. These merchants of faith receive massive wealth and a lot of weapons from the Middle East, all of which they are passing on to our youth in order to lead them astray. Their student wings are terrorizing the various colleges and universities in the country. We are the progeny of the Language Movement of 1952 and the Liberation War of 1971 and we will not let our land be poisoned.’
Despite everything, a few leftist intellectuals in West Bengal persisted in
their condemnation of Lajja, though much of their rants fell upon deaf ears, especially after E.M.S. Namboodiripad, the grand vizier of the communists in India, publicly acknowledged that Lajja was a valuable book. He congratulated me for speaking out on behalf of minorities despite being a Muslim, his words dealing a severe blow to the confidence with which many had dismissed my book for being substandard from an aesthetic point of view. I was sure Namboodiripad understood its literary merit far better that I. To me Lajja remained an aesthetically inferior book no matter what anyone said.
Demon
Nirbachito Kolam was published in February 1991, comprising columns I had written between 1989 and 1990. Instead of the word ‘nirbachito’ in the title the book should have probably been called ‘prapto’ (found); Khoka had only included the columns he had managed to find. Many of the columns were lost and I hadn’t ever thought to keep a copy; I had never imagined it was all going to be compiled into a book one day.
After the book was published those who did not agree with it had carried on long debates in newspapers and magazines. A few enthusiastic ones had even written entire books in response. Over time, I managed to get my hands on some of these books. In February 1993 the publisher of Gyankosh sent me a book called Uchit Jabab (The Right Answers) by a Mohammed Mokaddas Hossain. In his book Hossain had reprinted Nirbachito Kolam in its entirety, added his own comments and responses below each column and made it into a new book. While Nirbachito Kolam was still selling well, so was Uchit Jabab. The second book cost 10 taka less so obviously it was going to sell well!
The readers were getting my book plus something extra by way of his critical commentary! My publisher also informed me that those who were going to buy Uchit Jabab would not have to buy my book at all since almost the entire thing had been reprinted in it. He was concerned about the business side of it, while what I could not get over was Mokaddas Hossain’s dishonesty. I wanted to find out about the copyright laws related to books in the country and I decided to ask Nahid for help. Nahid was a law student and a frequent visitor to my house; she was an admirer of my work and came over frequently to see me. It was Nahid who enthusiastically suggested one day that I should sue them. There was no one who knew less about legal matters than I did so I was justifiably a little reticent about it, but Nahid assured me that I would hardly have to do anything on my own in the matter and she promised to get Rabiya Bhuiyan to fight the case.
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