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Hypocrisy split wide open

Hypocrisy split wide open

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.
 


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