JOIN USTaslima Nasrin wrote that there’s no god, and the carefully constructed religious system perpetuated an edifice of patriarchy, power and self-interest.
Clerics benefitted from this. Politicians played weathercock, turning this way and that, according to the mood of the times. That is Taslima’s opinion. You could agree or argue with her. She herself suffered from patriarchy, power and the self-interest of politicians. Religion and politics should ideally be debated with clear minds, with no heroes or villains. We do have the example of Shankaracharya in our own cultural backyard, travelling across the country, centuries ago, to prove his point through debate. In the 21st century, Taslima, for her pains, found herself exiled.
This book contains her thoughts. It has poetic outpouring, diary jottings and phone conversations, extracts from articles, personal peeves and ramblings, the (sometimes paranoid) suspicions of one manipulated and used by shakers and movers of the body politic, a cornered person who finds she has no one to appeal to.
You have to get into her skin, in a closed room, with no one else to talk to but her captors, nowhere to go, no clue about her future. And all this, not as punishment, but to ensure her safety from violent fundamentalists, to safeguard her freedom! You have to feel her frustration. The irony of the whole world knowing she’s being held, but no one is able to facilitate her release. It makes you wonder at the nature of freedom.
Exile was written five years ago. Translated skillfully by Maharghya Chakraborty, it reaches us in English now. In her Preface, Taslima talks about the flak and injury she faced for presenting the truth as she sees it, placing herself squarely in the plight of Galileo and Darwin. “If we stop expressing our opinion because someone will be hurt by them, if we curb the growth and development of scientific knowledge, if we forcibly try to stall the march of civilization, we will end up inhabiting a stagnant quagmire, bereft of knowledge and growth.”
Her book Dwikhandito left a trail of indignation and hatred in its wake. It was banned, she was exiled, shunned, and even former friends turned away.
Apart from proclaiming that Islam is not a religion of peace, and that fundamentalists are only being true to their religion, she also drops the names of men she’s been intimate with. “Have I broken someone’s trust? I do not remember ever making promises that I will never speak about these incidents to anyone!” The repercussions include strongly worded diatribes by men of letters against her integrity and morality.
Expelled from Bangladesh, she lived and worked in cities in the West before coming home to roost in Kolkata, which is just “this side” of her Bangla homeland, sharing the same language, habits and food. Happy with her writing, friends and admirers, her life is soon shattered. In Hyderabad, to attend the launch of her book Shodh translated into Telugu, she is attacked by Islamic fundamentalists, actually orchestrated by politicians in search of an appropriate cause. That sets off a chain of events.
The dates don’t matter here. Nor do people and their reasons. It’s the sequence of causes that matters. The writing that doesn’t cause a stir until a time comes. Political opportunism dictates everything. It happens, as only a well-oiled system can make it happen. The perception of threat to her life, the pressure to leave West Bengal, the flight to Jaipur, and then, the scariest of all, the drive to the airport to return to Kolkata, which ends up in a safe house in Delhi, sequestered, lonely, and ignorant of the future.
Through all this, Taslima steadfastly refuses to leave India and seek refuge in Western countries where she’s been feted and welcomed, since India is closest in character and emotion to her home. Her friends turn cold; others pressurise her to leave “for her own sake”. Her admirers send messages of confidence, but when the time comes, there are more protestors than supporters on the streets. This is a book that shows what can happen to the bravest soul, the strongest will, when pushed against the wall.
There are repetitions. Entreaties, grouses and bitter examples are paraded again and again, often in the same words throughout the book. She praises India, chastises it for its political duplicity, shows up the hollowness of bureaucratic assurances. This becomes more frequent as we see the rise of her desperation, her terrible loneliness, her diary — the only receptacle for her confidences. The irony of the liberal Left, the secular, egalitarian Left, buckling under the compulsions of the Islamic vote bank. She says, they’ll do anything against Hindu fundamentalists, but not say a word against the Islamists. Celebrities support her graciously in words. Politicians turn into a brick wall, diplomacy adding cement to personal embarrassment.
Exile can be read in different ways — as an ode to the impossible dream of being able to uphold the truth by maintaining it; as a portrait of politics that rarely recognises the human viewpoint; as the slow decline of a woman who stood strong. Finally, Taslima leaves India, holding a piece of paper that says she can return any time.
Exile
Taslima Nasrin, translated by Maharghya Chakraborty
Penguin
2016, pp 335, Rs 599