Taslima Nasrin’s upcoming Kolkata visit litmus test for free speech

New Delhi: Author Taslima Nasrin’s upcoming Kolkata visit has become a subject of political debate since it became known that the writer, a long-standing target of zealots, is attending an anti-fundamentalism literary event on August 1, nearly two decades after her forced exile from the city she chose as home since being banished from her homeland in Bangladesh.

In March last year, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Rajya Sabha MP, Samik Bhattacharya, now the party chief in West Bengal, had sought that she be allowed to return to Kolkata, which she left in 2007 amid widespread protests against her published works.

This statement in the Upper House of Parliament served as a high-voltage political statement later.

Now, her visit underscores a shifting political dynamic under the new state government, challenging past precedents of capitulation to religious sensitivities.

Her initial tenure in Kolkata – considered the cultural capital closest to her native Bengali heritage – was abruptly ended by street violence.

In November 2007, hardline groups enforced violent shutdowns and riots in the city, demanding her expulsion for her autobiographical writings, such as ‘Dwikhandito’ (split in two)’.

Under massive pressure, the then Left Front government allegedly capitulated and Nasrin had to relocate out of Kolkata, reportedly to ensure public order.

Ban on her writings continued as did a bar on her from entering the state under the subsequent Trinamool regime as well.

Her forced removal from the city that she considered her adopted home became a lingering sore point for advocates of free speech.

Even as some Left leaders took jibes on the reported visit, Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Sujan Chakraborty stated that it is as per the Union government’s decision and it can happen only with the Home Ministry’s sanction.

“Why blame the (then) state Left Front government? Where would a foreign national stay and for how long, is an issue not for the state but the Central government to decide. There may have been a Left Front government in West Bengal, but not at the Centre,” he commented in a Facebook post.

Meanwhile, Trinamool Congress MLA Akhruzzaman told IANS, “She has said a lot against the Muslim community, against Shariat in Islam. If someone speaks against the Muslims then the double engine government will respect them, what is there to say?”

The new state government is proactively extending security for Nasrin’s visit and projecting the event as an ideological reversal.

It is also being framed among sections as a rejection of alleged “long-standing appeasement and minority vote bank politics” of previous regimes, who kept the 63-year-old author out to avoid antagonising fundamentalist elements.

Others are criticising the event, alleging that the ruling party is merely using her presence to score political points and stoke religious polarisation.

However, Taslima Nasrin’s return to the City of Joy transcends a mere literary gathering, acting like a litmus test for free speech, testing the balance between public order and the right to expression in a highly polarised political landscape.

By facilitating her return, the current establishment is signalling a paradigm shift – positioning the state as a defender of liberal values against fundamentalist pressure, a move that will resonate deeply in upcoming political and cultural discourses across India.

Nasrin started as a physician before emerging as a fierce, controversial voice advocating for women’s equality and the secular critique of orthodox religion.

Her struggle began in 1993 following the publication of her novel ‘Lajja (Shame)’, which detailed the persecution of the Hindu minority in Bangladesh in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition in India.

The book incited massive outrage among religious hardliners. Islamic fundamentalists hate Nasrin because of her fearless, unflinching critique of patriarchal customs, blasphemy laws, and the theological oppression embedded within religious frameworks.

Radical clerics in Bangladesh issued fatwas against her, demanding her execution and placing a bounty on her head.

They labelled her an apostate, mobilising hundreds of thousands of protestors in Dhaka to demand her hanging.

Consequently, facing immediate peril to her life, she fled Bangladesh in 1994, seeking refuge in Sweden and other European countries.

She has lived for decades on a temporary renewable residential permit in India, as due to the severe and persistent threats to her life, no Bangladeshi government has allowed Nasrin to return to her homeland.

IANS