Slamming the West Bengal government for packing off controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday said it is a "total capitulation" before fundamentalist forces.
The intelligentsia in West Bengal has expressed indignation and outrage at Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen being taken to Rajasthan following the violence during a shutdown to demand cancellation of her visa.
Controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, who returned to India from Sweden early this month, is likely to leave the country again for some destination in Europe as her movement is being restricted due to security concerns. The 45-year-old Bangladeshi writer, who has been a target of Islamic fundamentalists, returned to India recently from Sweden and was whisked away by security agencies to an undisclosed destination in Delhi.
Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen, whose visa was extended to stay in India beyond February 17, on Thursday expressed gratitude to the government, but remained concerned over curbs on her movement and freedom of expression.
Nasreen, who has been kept in virtual confinement somewhere in Delhi, was named as recipient of Simone de Beauvoir award by the French government on January nine.
Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen has been chosen for the prestigious Simon de Beauvoir feminist award in recognition of her writing on rights for women.
"As far as states are concerned, it's the primary responsibility of the states to provide security. But if the state government wants any assistance from the Centre in that respect, we will be glad to provide that," Mukherjee said.
"She is a guest and should behave like a guest. She should not do anything that would hurt the people's sentiment," Pranab said while denying a report that the author was virtually under house arrest.
Bengali intellectuals, who recently participated in a huge march in Kolkata to denounce the recapture of Nandigram, have floated a platform for a set of demands. These include immediate return of Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen to the city and no further pressure on farmers of Nandigram for setting up industry.
Exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen is penning her sixth autobiographical book Nai Kichu Nei (There is Nothing), but recent circumstances have not allowed her to continue writing.
Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen on Friday withdrew controversial lines in her autobiographical book Dikhandita, which had evoked strong protests from a "section of the people."
Nasreen, who was staying in New Delhi for the last two days at the Rajasthan House after being virtually hounded out of Kolkata last week, was whisked away by officials of the central agencies at around 1 am.
Her departure to Delhi at 0630 hours came amid threats by a Muslim organization -- the All India Milli Council -- to hold demonstrations in the city if the writer was kept in the state for long. Opposing her stay in the city, Milli state vice president Engineer Mohd Saleem said freedom does not mean that you can abuse any religion.
The Rajasthan government on Thursday night claimed it was not informed about controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen being flown here from Kolkata.
The government is contemplating imposing curfew in some areas of Kolkata at night.
Armed with a six-month extension of her visa to stay in India, controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen said on Friday that she is traveling to the United States in August to work as a research scholar at the New York University and will return to her 'adopted country' in January next year. Taslima expressed her gratitude to the Indian government for extending her visa till February 16.
The visa of controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, who was attacked by activists of Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen in Hyderabad earlier this month, has been extended for six months from Saturday.
The clergy wants the writer in-exile deported from the country in a week
Renowned Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen has said she wants to stay in Tripura after returning to India in August. Talking to a leading local daily in Agartala over telephone from Sweden, Nasreen said she felt like being 'buried alive' in that country.
Noting that she wants to lead a normal life, exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen on Monday said she needs to go abroad soon to de-stress herself. Speaking to PTI from an undisclosed location in Delhi, Nasreen said the suffering she had been undergoing for the past seven-and-a-half months had affected her health.
Taslima (45) said she is also pinning her hopes on External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee's statement in Parliament about India's reputation for hospitality and that it welcomed guests as long as they respected the sentiments of people.
"I am still hopeful about my plea for citizenship being granted by the Centre," she said.
Taslima, in her article titled 'Let's Burn The Burqa,' criticised the wearing of veils and asked Muslim women to 'throw away the apparel of discrimination and burn their burqas.'
Taslima Nasreen was told by government officials that she will not be allowed to return to Kolkata, the controversial Bangladeshi writer said in an exclusive interview. Speaking from an undisclosed destination, Taslima said that she had told government officials, "I am not a criminal that I will not be allowed to return to Kolkata".
Welcoming Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen's decision to remove a controversial portion from her book Dwikhondito, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind on Friday said that the author was free to return to West Bengal.
"On Wednesday, I managed to speak to her on the phone and mind you, I was the first politician to do so. She told me that her movements were restricted and she was not allowed to move out," CPI leader Somnath Dasgupta told reporters.
The discussion has come at a time when the government has approached the International Atomic Energy Agency for discussing India-specific safeguards after securing the nod from the Left allies.
Even when there is widespread criticism against the West Bengal government after controversial Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen was hounded out of Kolkata, a CPI(M) leader and a state minister offered her his residence to stay.
"I am mentally distressed. I am not well at all," Nasreen said. However, the Bangladesh writer said that she still believed that Kolkata is a secular and democratic place.
Nasreen said she had been fighting religious fundamentalists for a long time. She had used her writing as a means to protest against fundamentalism, extremism and obscurantism.
"As a Bengali, I felt at home in this city. Unlike Europe, here I could speak in Bengali, read Bengali books, magazines and newspapers, watch Bengali programmes on television, and eat Bengali food. I was at peace," she once told me. That peace is now long shattered
In an e-mailed communication to those who stood by her and backed calls for her return to Kolkata, she said that her visitors had to take permission from 'higher-ups' in the government and their time and the duration of meeting her is fixed by them.Nasreen, bundled out of Kolkata in November following widespread violent protests by a Muslim group for her alleged anti-Islamic writings, said that those who had indulged in arson and violence had not read her book Dwikhondito.
Senior Communist Party of India - Marxist leader Jyoti Basu on Tuesday said that controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen can return to Kolkata if she chooses to, but the Centre will have to ensure her security. ''If she wants to return to Kolkata or elsewhere in West Bengal, she is welcome. But the Centre will have to ensure her security,'' he told reporters at his Salt Lake residence. He is the first CPI-M leader to speak in a sympathetic tone for the writer.
Since the visa of exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, who has been barred from coming out in public, was given by the Centre, it was up to her to decide whether she would stay in India, West Bengal Speaker H A Halim said on Friday.
The Islamists are unhappy with Taslima, there is no confusion about that. But what baffles me what has that got to do with an issue as grave as Nandigram? I fail to see any connection between the two. Nandigram, Taslima; Taslima, Nandigram -- I give up. Which is exactly when realisation dawns.
"I am a Bengali and Bengal is my home and feel at home in Kolkata, I know I am loved by the people there," said Taslima. "What are the people of Kolkata saying? What are the intellectuals saying?" she asked on the demand for cancellation of her visa by certain Muslim groups.
The Dwikhandito (Split Into Two) written in 2003 was a harsh take on how women are treated under Islam.
"India is a good place to live in and it is my second home. I don't want to go back to my country and I want to live here," Nasreen told NDTV.
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