Author: Bibhuti Bhusan Nandy
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: December 8, 2003
URL: http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_487386,00120002.htm
Taslima Nasreen is not a paragon
of virtue, but she is a brave woman. She has the grit to call a spade a
spade. Pronounced a murtad (apostate) and sentenced to death by Islamic
fanatics in Bangladesh, the exiled author remains firm in her condemnation
of polygamy and other ills in the male-dominated Muslim society, for which
she squarely blames the Prophet and the Koran.
Dwikhandita 'the safer' version,
(Ka in Bangladesh) is an autobiographical work in which Nasreen has unmasked
certain intellectuals of Bangladesh and West Bengal, narrating their extra-
marital escapades. Additionally, Dwikhandita reiterates the author's critical
views on Islam. On the complaints of one aggrieved Bangladeshi writer and
another intellectual of West Bengal, courts in Kolkata and Dhaka have stopped
the marketing and sale of the book.
Against this backdrop, the ban on
Dwikhandita (Split in two) by the Left Front regime reeks of ulterior motives.
It has exposed the state government to the charge of appeasement of Muslim
fanatics with an eye on the minority vote bank. It's also a clever, if
cynical, ploy to cover up the allegations of sexual aberrations involving
some pro- establishment intellectuals, notably a septuagenarian poet and
the father-in-law of a blue-eyed IAS officer, and another government favourite
in the state information directorate.
The Marxists' stand that Dwikhandita
has hurt the religious feelings of a section and could spark off communal
tensions is untenable. No fewer than 2,000 copies have been sold, but,
except for the complaint from a fairly nondescript poet and some self-serving
intellectuals, the book hasn't created any ripple, let alone unleash communal
tensions of any kind.
As Nasreen herself has pointed out,
her earlier books - Lajja, Amar Meyebela and Utal Hawa - had contained
much stronger attacks on Islam, Hazrat Mohammed, the Koran and the fundamentalists.
But the Left saw nothing objectionable in those texts. Lajja, published
in the wake of the post-Babri masjid communal backlash, was a graphic account
of unmitigated Hindu-cleansing in Bangladesh that drove tens of thousands
of Hindus into West Bengal. In this surcharged atmosphere, it had the potential
of arousing communal passions, but the communists kept quiet, fearing that
any action against the book would offend Hindu voters.
In view of the court injunction,
the ban is an exercise of executive power. It has pre-empted the judicial
process by removing the complainant's cause of action. The government feared
that the court proceedings might result in more damaging disclosures and
go in favour of the book and its author. Thus, scuttling of the sub judice
case was a safer bet. As the bizarre agitation against a high court order
restricting street demonstrations has confirmed, the power- crazy Left
has no respect for the law.
Unlike the West Bengal government,
the BNP-Jamaat dispensation in Bangladesh has not interfered with the court
case in Dhaka because the affected intellectuals there are mostly supporters
of the opposition party, Awami League. In 1994, the government of Begum
Zia encouraged the fundamentalists to agitate against Nasreen, so that
it could provide her with an excuse to ban Lajja and banish its author.
Today, in the face of sharpening criticism of the repression of the liberal
democratic forces in the country, Dhaka is chary of incurring further opprobrium
from the West.
The high-handed action of the West
Bengal government has turned the spotlight on the chronicle of Marxist
hypocrisy:
* In 1988, following the central
ban on Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses, the Left Front kicked up a row.
Ashok Mitra, former state finance minister, accused New Delhi of "pursuing
the path of Mohammed Ali Jinnah", conveniently forgetting that in 1947
the communists had unequivocally supported Jinnah's two-nation theory and
the Muslim League's demand for Partition. In a total volte face now, the
same party ideologue has justified the ban on Dwikhandita.
* In 1996, when M.F. Husain was
attacked in Maharashtra for painting Saraswati in the nude, the CPI(M)
organised massive protests in Kolkata, but Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee boycotted
his exhibition in the city earlier this year after the artist had done
some plainspeaking on the questionable merit of some Leftist artists.
* In 2000, after Deepa Mehta was
forced to abandon the filming of Water in Varanasi purportedly because
it hurt Hindu sentiments, the then chief minister, Jyoti Basu, and his
deputy, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, assured her security if she made the film
in West Bengal.
* Murtahim Billho Fazil's Hindutva
o Islam contains derogatory remarks against Hinduism, Christianity and
the Jewish faith, but the Left Front government has turned a blind eye
to this provocative book.
Since the Eighties, some so-called
progressive intellectuals of West Bengal have systematically denigrated
Hindu gods and goddesses. A prominent Bengali novelist, who had promoted
Nasreen earlier, has echoed the government's view that Dwikhandita has
hurt the religious feelings of some people. But, writing under the pseudonym
'Sanatan Pathak' in a Bengali journal, he had called Goddess Kali a "fierce
and ugly Santhal slut" (Kali hochhe bikrita beebhatsa darshana Sautal magi).
Later, pornographic celluloid rendering of his novel Radha Krishna in Bangladesh
offended the religious feelings of the Bangladeshi Hindus so much that
the Ershad government had to ban it. A recent article by Sharmila Bose
(Ananda Bazaar Patrika, August 3) depicted Ram as an impotent wretch and
Sita as a nymphomaniac. By turning a blind eye to these acts of blasphemy,
the Left has shown its bias against the Hindu faith.
The ban on Dwikhandita in the wake
of the excision of Ganesh vandana from the Chhou dance and boycott of Saraswati
bandana by the state government ministers doesn't augur well for communal
peace and harmony. These shibboleths have even provoked many non-communal
citizens to question the motive behind teaching the Koran, Hadis, Islamic
theology and Arabic at public expense and allowing mosques to operate in
government offices, educational institutions and hospitals.
