Author:
Publication: Mukto-Mona.com
Date: August 10, 2007
URL: http://www.mukto-mona.com/human_rights/condemning_attack_on_Taslima.htm
Recently in Hyderabad, India, at a meeting
to release the Telugu translation of her new book, "Shodh", prominent
feminist author and secular humanist activist Dr. Taslima Nasrin was physically
attacked by three State Legislators of the Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen (M-I-M)
who were accompanied by a horde of fundamentalist thugs. The legislators,
Syed Ahmed Pasha Quadri, Afsar Khan and Moazzam Khan seemed determined to
live up to the common joke about politicians in India entering this profession
in order to escape prosecution for crime, leaving some of her hosts bleeding.
Reports have suggested that two of the three legislators were filmed throwing
chairs at her and demanding that she be handed over to them when the organizers
of the book release function took her away to save her life, forming a cordon
by putting themselves between her and her attackers.
It must be noted that the M-I-M is an ally
of the ruling Congress Party in the State of Andhra Pradesh and that the Central
(federal) Government is also one in which the Communist Party of India Marxist,
a component along with the Congress, has been responsible for banning Dr Nasrin's
works in India and also opposing her petition for Indian citizenship. The
All India Muslim Personal Law Board has supported a Rs 5 Lakh fatwa on Ms
Nasrin's head by the fundamentalist Ittehad Council under it's Chief Taqi
Taza Khan, again, a potentially murderous action in response to which the
Indian Government has done little more than warm it's collective cushions.
Indeed, the only action that the Central Government took when International
Opinion began to turn into outrage was to send Union Information and Broadcasting
Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi to mouth a whiny regret for the attack and
nothing more.
Are these the true colors of the Indian government,
considering that the Communists in West Bengal who have been responsible for
banning some of Dr Nasrin's works and of opposing her citizenship application
and the State Government of Andhra Pradesh which is led by the ruling Congress
Party, are, for all practical purposes, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's underlings?
We hope not. As a rationalist organization that counts members from South
Asia as the majority of its membership, Mukto-Mona condemns the fundamentalists
who tried to murder Ms Nasrin and to intimidate a leading voice of rationalism
in the world. We condemn the Indian Government's hemming and hawing on an
issue that has caused physical injury to leading rationalists and freethinkers
and which threatens to silence them considering that the activities of murderous
fundamentalists are being allowed to continue unchecked.
This is not the first time that the Government
of India and the Manmohan Singh government in particular, have sat idly by
when thugs among its allies have worked to intimidate outspoken women. The
memories of the judicial intimidation of South Indian actress Khushboo by
the Pattali Makkal Katchi led by Union Minister for Health Dr Anbumani Ramdoss
have hardly receded into the past when a second government ally has savaged
an outspoken woman. We urge the Indian government not to sit idly by while
its allies behave like an Indian Taliban in savaging and attempting to silence
those whom they disapprove of.
We are watching, and hope soon the Indian
government shall take initiatives to punish those responsible for the cowardly
and barbaric attack on Taslima Nasrin, one of the leading secular voices of
our time.
Sincerely,
Mukto-Mona Moderation Team
