Meredith Tax from PEN, an international association of writers, had been trying to get in touch with me for some time. She had been calling me numerous times a day. The first time I had taken the call, unable to understand a word of what she was saying, I had been forced to hang up. Since then, whenever she called I had made someone tell her I was not at home or was indisposed. I could not begin to imagine how she had managed to get my phone number. Eventually she found out from someone about my lawyer and inundated Dr Kamal Hossain with telephone calls and faxes. Meredith was head of the female writers’ branch of PEN; her responsibilities included assisting women writers under persecution across the world. I did not know what help Meredith could be from far away in New York!
I was also certain that the depositions the government had received from various organizations across the globe had all ended up in the trash. Khaleda Zia was impassive to such requests. People were calling from France, Germany, Australia, Norway, Canada, England, India and elsewhere to ask how I was doing, what I was feeling, thinking, and whether I had enough security. Many were not satisfied with a phone call and eventually flew down to Bangladesh to meet me in person. The first world was on a sudden rush to the third. People from television, radio and newspapers were thronging my house all day.
A reporter from the BBC came to take an interview for a documentary that the BBC wanted to produce. A team came from a German television channel; they did not just want an interview, they shot enough material for an entire documentary. Another team from France came to shoot a two-hour documentary too. Shibnarayan Roy was at home that day and when the conversation inevitably turned to comparisons between me and Salman Rushdie he firmly replied, ‘There are many differences between Salman Rushdie and Taslima. Rushdie is not fighting for social change, Taslima is.’
The film crew was headed to Sylhet afterwards to interview Habibur Rahman, although they were so cautious about it that they did not breathe a word about it to me. Unfortunately, while heading towards Old Dhaka to interview a Hindu family, they were caught on camera and the photo was published in Inquilab. Police detectives had followed them because the government was concerned that foreigners had come to shoot a documentary with dishonest intentions. Answering Inquilab’s call, a thorough search was conducted of the entire team and they were forced to leave the country. Thankfully they had already sent a copy of the film to Paris secretly via the French consulate.
After this incident no foreign journalists planning to interview me were allowed to enter the country. The smart ones began using myriad other excuses to get past security. Catherine Bédarida of the French magazine Le Monde came to meet me, as did Antoine de Gaudemar of Libération. I quite liked Gaudemar. It was not difficult to understand what he was saying; he spoke a halting and broken sort of English. Being a Bengali through and through—forget French, the do-not-know-English-well kind of Bengali—my English was as tattered as his. During his visit we drove to the river Dholeswari one day. Gaudemar was concerned that something might happen if I were to go out, but I was suffocated after being confined to the house for so long and wanted to go out somewhere.
When Jill Saucier from a French photo agency came to take my photographs and requested a visit to Mymensingh I had to agree. Jill wanted to take photographs of the house I had spent my childhood in and the school I had attended. I was thankful for these sudden trips even though we were in a car and there were no impromptu halts on the way at a shop or a marketplace. At least you could see people zipping past the car window! After being confined within the four walls of my house for days on end my room seemed to me like my own mausoleum. I was going to die one day for certain but that did not mean I had to sit in my grave and wait. I would keep repeating to myself Sikdar’s counsel. ‘Don’t be afraid!’
Journalists from Sunday and the Statesman came to me from India for interviews. There were conferences being held across India in condemnation of the fatwa. Statements were being issued, many sensible writers were writing on my behalf and editorials were being published in the newspapers. A group of authors in Calcutta, led by Annada Shankar Roy, had gone to the Bangladeshi consulate with a deposition only to be rudely turned away. A forum in defence of my right to life and freedom of expression was organized at University of Calcutta by the Bangladesh Bharat Maitri Samiti (Committee for Indo-Bangladesh Unity). Many renowned scholars including Annada Shankar Roy were present there, although there was no one from Bangladesh in attendance. At the forum Roy opined that I was a child of the twenty-first century who had been born in the twentieth by mistake; I should have been born in France or England instead of Bangladesh. He also remarked, ‘Taslima is an Angry Young Woman while the mullahs are a group of Angry Old Men. An accord between the two is impossible. Besides, we must admit that we can hardly hope to sway public opinion in Bangladesh from here in West Bengal. That task can only be performed by leading intellectuals over there and all we can do is pledge our support to them.’
Meanwhile, the English translation of Lajja was published by Penguin India. Publishers from various countries were calling me and expressing their interest in translating and publishing the book in other foreign languages. Ever since the news of the fatwa had been taken up by Western media people were convinced that since I was a writer I must have written a truly objectionable book for the fundamentalists to be so incensed by me. Since The Satanic Verses was responsible for Salman Rushdie’s fatwa, there had to be a book in my case too. It had been some time since the government had banned Lajja. But a few journalists erroneously cited the book as the primary cause of the fatwa, purely to satisfy the curiosity of their readers. Was Lajja truly the main reason behind the ire of the fundamentalists? No, it was not. The fundamentalists had been upset with me for some time; the ban had only managed to add fuel to the fire that had been simmering for a long time. This explained the fatwa. The government’s inaction had bolstered their courage and further fanned the flames. This explained the nationwide movement. For me the English translation had made sense. Even though the story was set entirely in Bangladesh, since communal riots were not an uncommon thing in India it was not going to be incomprehensible to the readers there. But what were German and French readers going to glean from the book? A little piqued, I asked one of the publishers one day, ‘Do you know what Lajja is about?’
‘No, I don’t, not really.’
‘It’s entirely about certain regions of Bangladesh. There is a lot of data in it. Your readers won’t like to read it. It’s not that good as a novel.’
‘Don’t even worry about that. Just let us publish it.’
‘I don’t think I have written anything till date that can be translated into a foreign language. I have written about the social problems around me. There is no international flavour to it. Let me write something decent, I will surely let you publish it.’
‘Of course we can print whatever you write in the future. But we really want to publish Lajja now.’
‘Why Lajja of all things?’
‘Because it was banned by the government of Bangladesh! Isn’t the fatwa because of that too?’
‘No, the fatwa was not declared because of Lajja. The fundamentalists had been grumbling since its publication. The fatwa was declared much after the ban. The book was out in the market for three months here after it was published. No radical ever demanded that Lajja be banned.’
‘Still, we want to publish it.’
‘This book won’t do well in your country.’
‘We will take care of that. Just give us your permission. We will give you an advance on the royalty.’
‘Royalty isn’t an issue here. What matters is the reader’s interest. Why would your readers be interested in Hindu–Muslim issues in Bangladesh?’
‘They are interested. You leave that to us, we will take care of all that.’
They would just not listen. Michèle Idele from the French publishing house Édition des Femmes was calling me three times a day for the same. ‘Taslima, you have f
ought relentlessly for women’s rights. Our organization too has been involved in a similar endeavour for many years. We are protesting on your behalf here. Give us permission to publish Lajja. We are sending you the contract, please sign it.’
‘But Lajja is not about women’s rights. I have a few books about women; see if you can publish any of those. Although I am not sure if the problems of the women of Bangladesh will resonate with . . .’
‘Don’t think about that. Of course we want to know about women from other countries. We will print those too. But we will print Lajja first.’
‘Lajja has already been published in English. Read that first and see if it is fit to be translated and published. I am confident you will not want to publish it after reading it.’
‘We won’t want to publish it! What are you saying? We are desperate to get the book!’
‘Why? What is it about the book?’
‘You have criticized Islam in it. Which is why the Muslims are angry!’
‘That’s completely wrong,’ I replied bitterly. ‘There’s no criticism of Islam in Lajja.’
‘Taslima, we don’t believe in religion. For us every religion is the same. Women are oppressed by every religion.’
‘That even I believe.’
‘Don’t think that the only reason we wish to publish the book is because you have been critical of Islam in it. A feminist writer, far away in Bangladesh, has written a book that has been banned by her government and she has been publicly sentenced to death for it. We want to read this book. Our readers want to read this book too.’
‘Let me repeat, they don’t want to hang me because of Lajja, they want to hang me because of my comments on Islam.’
‘It’s the same thing. They want to hang you because of your writing.’
It was never-ending and the more such requests poured in the more awkward it became for me. Two French publishers, Michèle Idele and Christian Besse, were both adamant about getting my permission to publish Lajja in French and a tussle ensued between them regarding it. Both of them sent me the contract form, Michelle offering me 5000 francs as advance and Besse offering me 30,000. They were calling me from France every day much to my chagrin. Lajja had become a source of embarrassment for me. I could not fathom what interest French readers might have regarding what was happening deep in the heart of Bhola or Manikgunje. From time to time Besse would manage to get hold of me on a sudden telephone call. ‘Taslima, you are a writer. There are many publishers who publish books that have caused a storm and then conveniently forget about the writer after it. But we respect you as a writer. We publish books by good authors regardless of whether the books sell or not. We don’t wish to publish a suddenly famous author simply based on a whim. We have been printing books by renowned authors from across the world in French. The other French publisher you have mentioned publishes feminist literature, but Lajja is not a feminist work! They want to publish it simply because so many magazines are writing about your book.’
I had to agree with him on that count. ‘How do you know I am a good writer? You haven’t read my work. The truth is, I can’t really write well. There are numerous authors in this country who are far better writers than I ever will be. I am a doctor, I was never a student of Bengali literature. I haven’t yet learnt how to write a proper novel! I have mainly written about social problems I see in my country. And sometimes I write angry pieces about injustice, oppression and discrimination. That’s about it!’
In a tone that evoked a heartfelt familiarity Besse disagreed with my assessment. ‘Don’t pull your own writing down! You say you can’t write, if that were true why are so many people angry with you? Surely you have touched a raw nerve. Not everyone is capable of doing something like that. Just like good literature is important, literature that acts as a catalyst to social change is also equally important. Be confident and you will be able to write great books. Even if you don’t want to be called a writer, that is who you are and you must continue to write. We the publishers, we don’t just want to publish popular and famous authors, we want to inspire writers to write more. That is our job too, we make writers. We try and inspire those who show immense promise. You have a lot of potential, Taslima.’
~
The state religion of Bangladesh was still Islam. Even though passing a fatwa was illegal as per the laws of the country, it was allowed within the tenets of Islam. Islam has certain punishments specified for certain crimes. If someone commits adultery they are to be stoned and if one is accused of something that is not Islamic then they are to be caned a hundred and one times. In my country fundamentalism was on the rise and the winds were blowing in their favour. As usual, women were the first to fall victim to the fatwas issued by fatwaphilic maulanas in villages across the country.
In a village called Hathkachhra in Sylhet, Noorjahan had gotten married for the second time. Maulana Manna declared the marriage against Islamic tenets because she was yet to get a talaq from her first husband. The man in question had left her years back and she had sent the relevant documents for a talaq to his address before her second marriage. Nevertheless, it was decreed that Noorjahan was to be stoned. A huge pit was dug in the courtyard of her house and she was made to stand in it. Then the maulanas stoned her in the name of Allah while the entire village stood around and watched without a word of protest. Bloodied, humiliated, Noorjahan climbed out of the pit, walked to her house and committed suicide by consuming poison.
In Faridpur, another Noorjahan had gone on a trip with her lover despite having a husband. Adultery being a sin in Islam, the maulana declared a fatwa against her and Noorjahan was tied up and burnt alive. In Kalikapur, under the Kaligunje police station of Saatkhira, Khalek Mistry’s sixteen-year-old daughter Feroza used to catch tiny shrimps from the river to sell and help her father out. One day she met fisherman Haripada Mandal’s son Uday from the adjoining village of Bandakati and the two of them began a relationship. The chairman of the local council tried Feroza because of the grave offence and according to the sharia she was tied to a post and struck with a broom a hundred and one times. After the ordeal Feroza limped home on her sister’s shoulder and committed suicide soon after. A punishment was decided for Uday too because he was Hindu.
Not all such incidents of fatwas made it to the papers; it was not easy to find out about all the girls dying because of random fatwas declared on them in one of the 68,000 villages in Bangladesh. If an incident was to cause exceptional outrage only then did it come under the radar of a local journalist. Besides, it also depended on the newspaper the journalist was from. Those belonging to the Inquilab faction never printed such news, unwilling to give the public any chance to complain about anything. Rather, if such news got published elsewhere and inspired criticism, they immediately jumped to the defence of the clerics and produced opaque arguments against the women in question to legitimize what had happened. Inquilab was the highest selling and most ghoulish newspaper of the country; it had surpassed Ittefaq which used to enjoy the most circulation previously.
When the news broke all of a sudden that fundamentalists had incinerated 112 schools for girls constructed by BRAC, an NGO, and also declared a fatwa against girls attending school, Inquilab took up the task of defending the perpetrators. They argued that the NGO schools had been trying to convert the girls to Christianity, since BRAC was primarily financed by Christian nations. Even the women of the villages who used to work for the NGO had fatwas slapped on them forbidding them to leave their houses, and if they were to disobey then their husbands were going to be forced to give them talaq.
Not just fatwas, the village arbitration councils too were charting new heights of barbarism. Such councils had been a common feature in villages for centuries. In Badekusha of Sirajgunje, a council led by the imam of the mosque and the village elders ostracized thirty-five women because they had dared to follow family planning procedures. Family planning was against the tenets of Allah, so the axe of religion had fallen on their heads and the
thirty-five were consigned to spend the rest of their lives as outcasts. They had to accept the judgement in silence, since religion had been reduced to a personal fiefdom of the maulanas. A long flowing robe, a fez cap, dark lines on the forehead from regularly reading the namaz, chanting the tasbih a few times, these had been enough for them to fashion religion into their own property. Using faith as a tool of fear they were controlling the people. No one had ever heard of cases or complaints being lodged against a maulana, an imam or an elder and neither did any of them ever get punished for their crimes.
Jashne Julus processions marking the birth anniversary of Hazrat Muhammad were being organized across the city and trucks full of cap-wearing men could be seen everywhere in Dhaka. The entire city was gearing up for festivities. When the Hindus had taken out a Janmashtami procession they had been attacked by the BNP’s stick-wielding goons; members of their Yuva Command had assaulted women, torn off their saris and cracked the skull of the boy who had been put on the float as Krishna. Ultimately the procession had dispersed and the police, standing at a distance as mute spectators, had not raised a finger during the whole episode.
While the fanatics were on a rampage across the country, in an unparalleled show of thoughtlessness the courts declared their leader Golam Azam innocent of all charges, paving the way for his release from prison. The murderer walked out of jail and was publicly greeted with flowers and garlands. The traitor whose citizenship had once been revoked was set to get back his rights as a citizen of Bangladesh again. It seemed to me a strong possibility that soon the government was going to accord Golam Azam and his felon cronies—who had been responsible for the death of millions of Bengalis, who had set fire to millions of homes and raped countless Bengali women—the status of muktijoddhas.
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