[Reader-list] Taslima, The Vanishing (full text)

[Naeem Mohaiemen]

Apologies, the URL I sent earlier has been deleted from Drishtipat blog.

Here is the full text in body of email.

Banished Within and Without
Taslima Nasreen

Although I was not born an Indian there is very little about my
appearance, my tastes, my habits and my traditions to distinguish me
from a daughter of the soil. Had I been born some years earlier than I
was, I would have been an Indian in every sense of the term. My father
was born before partition; the strange history of this subcontinent
made him a citizen of three states, his daughter a national of two. In
a village in what was then East Bengal, there once lived a poor farmer
by the name of Haradhan Sarkar, one of whose sons, Komol, driven to
fury by zamindari oppression, converted to Islam and became Kamal. I
belong to this family. Haradhan Sarkar was my great-grandfather's
father. Haradhan's other descendents obviously moved to India either
during or after partition and became citizens of this country. My
grandfather, a Muslim, did not. <strong>When I was a child, the notion
of the once fashionable theory of pan-Islamic had been exploded by
East Pakistani Muslims fighting their West Pakistani coreligionists.
Our struggle was for Bengali  nationalism and secularism.</strong>
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Even though I was born well after partition, the notion of undivided
India held me in thrall.  I wrote a number of poems and stories
lamenting the loss of undivided Bengal, indeed undivided India even
before I visited this country. I simply could not bring myself to
accept the bit of barbed wire that kept families and friends apart
even though they shared a common language and culture. What hurt most
was that this wire had been secured by religion. By my early teens I
had forsaken religion and turned towards secular humanism and feminism
which sprang from within me and were in no way artificially imposed.
My father, a man with a modern scientific outlook, encouraged me to
introspect and as I grew older I broke away not just from religion but
also from all the traditions and customs, indeed the very culture,
which constantly oppressed, suppressed and denigrated women. When I
first visited India, specifically West Bengal, in 1989, I did not for
an instant think I  was in a foreign land. From the moment I set foot
on Indian soil, I knew I belonged here and that it was, in some
fundamental way, inseparable from the land I called my own. The reason
for this was not my Hindu forebear. The reason was not that one of
India's many cultures is my own or that I speak one of her many
languages or that I look Indian.

It is because the values and traditions of India are embedded deeply
within me. These values and traditions are a manifestation of the
history of the subcontinent. I am a victim of that history. Then
again, I have been enriched and enlivened by it, if one can call it
so. I am a victim of its poverty, colonial legacy, faiths,
communalism, violence, bloodshed, partition, migrations, exodus,
riots, wars and even theories of nationhood. I have been hardened
further by my life and experiences in a dirty, poverty- and
famine-stricken, ill-governed theocracy called Bangladesh.

The intolerance, fanaticism and bigotry of Islamic fundamentalists
forced me to leave Bangladesh, herself a victim of the subcontinent's
history. I was forced to go into exile; the doors of my own country
slammed shut on my face for good. Since that moment I sought refuge in
India. When I was finally allowed entry, not for an instant did I
think I was in an alien land. Why did I not think so; especially when
every other country in Asia, Europe and America felt alien to me? Even
after spending twelve years in Europe I could not think of it as my
home. It took less than a year to think of India as my home. Is it
because we, India and I, share a common history? Had East Bengal
remained a province of undivided India would the state have tolerated
an attack on basic human freedoms and values and the call for the
death by hanging of a secular writer by the proponents of
fundamentalist Islam and self-seeking politicians? How would a secular
democracy have reacted to this threat against one of its own? Or is
the burden of defending human and democratic values solely a European
or American concern? The gates of India remained firmly shut when I
needed her shelter the most. The Europeans welcomed me with open arms.
Yet, in Europe I always considered myself a stranger, an outsider.
After twelve long years in exile when I arrived in India it felt as
though I had been resurrected from some lonely grave. I knew this
land, I knew the people, I had grown up somewhere very similar, almost
indistinguishable. I felt the need to do something for this land and
its people.
There was a burning desire within me to see that women become educated
and independent, that they stand up for and demand their rights and
freedom. I wanted my writing to invigorate and contribute in some way
to the empowerment of these women who had always been oppressed and
suppressed. In the meanwhile, a few Islamic fundamentalists in
Hyderabad chose to launch a physical attack upon me. The decision to
attack me was motivated by the desire to gain popularity among the
local masses. "A woman by the name of Taslima Nasrin has launched a
vicious attack upon Islam and is all set to destroy the tenets of the
faith. Therefore, Islam must be protected from this woman and the only
way to do so is to kill her. Her death will bring many rewards:
millions as fatwa bounty in this world, salvation and unparalleled
delights in the next." This is the manner in which Islamic
fundamentalists in secular India are attempting to entice poor,
uneducated, uninformed Muslims while simultaneously looking to
solidify their vote bank within the community. After hearing of the
incident in Hyderabad, fundamentalist leaders in West Bengal, where I
live, became so excited that they wasted no time in issuing fatwas
against me and calling for my head. Students from madrasas who did not
even know of my existence joined the fray. They knew of my blasphemy
without having read a single one of my books. How did they know?
Because their leaders had assured them that I had made it my mission
to destroy Islam. Therefore, it was their individual and collective
responsibility to protect and preserve their faith. Can one find a
more perfect example of brainwashing? While their knowledge of my work
may be infinitesimal, their knowledge of Islam is equally so and they
have turned their faith into a commodity for their own base ends.
Almost twenty per
cent of India's population is Muslim and, unfortunately, the most
vocal representatives of this considerable community are
fundamentalists. Educated, civilized, cultured and secular people from
the Muslim community are not regarded as representative of the
community . What can be a greater tragedy than this?

A greater tragedy, arguably, is that I may have to endure in
progressive India, indeed in West Bengal, what I had to endure in
Bangladesh. I live practically under house arrest. No public place is
allegedly safe for me any longer. Not even the homes of friends are
above suspicion, nothing is above suspicion. Even stepping out for a
walk is considered unsafe. It is felt that I should spend my days in a
poorly lit room grappling with shadows. Those who threaten to kill me
are allowed by the state to spew their venom. They have tacitly been
given the rights to do whatever they desire from disturbing the peace
with their demonstrations to terrorizing the common man in the name of
their faith. Those that oppose them and their unholy brand of
communalism, those who take a stance against injustice and untruth are
silenced in invidious ways. I am warned both implicitly and explicitly
that, for example, a fundamentalists' demonstration is about to take
place and it would be best for all concerned if I quietly left the
city. Of course, do return by all means, but only when the situation
has calmed down, I am advised. But will the situation ever calm down?
For the last thirteen years I have been waiting for the situation to
calm down. I was told the same thing when I left Bangladesh to go into
exile. I refuse to leave because to leave would be to accept defeat
and hand the fundamentalists the victory they have always desired. It
would spell defeat for the freedom of expression, independence of
thought, democracy and secularism. I simply refuse to allow them this
victory. If they are eventually victorious, the loss will be as much
mine as India's. If India gives in to the fundamentalists' demand to
deport me, the list of demands will become an endless one. A
deportation today, a ban tomorrow, an execution the day after. Where
will it cease? They will pursue their agenda with boundless enthusiasm
knowing that victory is certain. And, of course, the secular state and
its secular custodians will bow down to every fundamentalist's every
whim and fancy. Giving in to their demands is not a solution and any
attempt to appease them makes them even more dangerous and pernicious.
Even in my worst nightmares I had not imagined that I would be
persecuted in India as I was in Bangladesh. Persecuted by the majority
in one and a minority in another, but persecuted just the same. The
bigotry, the intolerance, the death threats, the terrors: all the
same. I often wonder what good it would do them to kill me. The
fundamentalists are very well aware that it may bring them some
benefit but will do nothing for the cause of Islam. Islam will remain
as it has always remained. Neither I nor any other individual has the
ability to destabilize Islam. The face of fundamentalism, its language
and its intentions are the same the world over: to grab civilization
by the scruff of its neck and drag it back a few millennia kicking and
screaming. My world is gradually shrinking. I, who once roamed the
streets without a care in the world, am now shackled. Always
outspoken, I am now silenced, unable to demonstrate, left without the
means of protesting for what I hold dear. Film festivals, concerts and
plays all continue around me but I cannot participate. I spend my
existence surrounded by walls: a prisoner. But I refuse to acknowledge
this as my destiny. I still believe that one day I will be able to
resume the life I once enjoyed. I still believe that India, unlike
Bangladesh, will triumph over fundamentalism. I still believe that I
will find shelter and solace here. The love and affection of Indians
is my true shelter and solace. I still believe I will be able to spend
the rest of my life here free of cares and worries. I love this
country. I treat this land as my own. If I were to be ejected from
this country it would amount to the cold-blooded murder of my most
cherished ideals, perhaps a fate far worse than I could meet at the
hands of any fundamentalist.

I have nowhere to go, no country or home to return to. India is my
country, India is my home. How much more will I have to endure at the
hands of fundamentalists and their vote-grabbing political allies for
the cardinal sin of daring to articulate the truth? If the
subcontinent turns its back on me I have nowhere to go, no means to
survive. Even after all that has happened, I still believe, I still
dream, that for a sincere, honest, secular writer, India is the safest
refuge, the only refuge.

Kolkata
18 september

------

The Vanishing
Taslima Nasreen

Where am I? I am certain no one will believe me if I say I have no
answer to this apparently  straightforward question. They may believe
what they wish, but the truth is I just do not  know. I don't even
know how I am. Sometimes I even appear to forget my own existence.  I
am like the living dead: benumbed; robbed of the pleasure of existence
and experience;  unable to move beyond the claustrophobic confines of
my room. Day and night, night and  day. Death becomes an intimate. We
embrace. Yes, this is how I have been surviving.
 This did not begin the other day when I was bundled out of Kolkata.
This has been going  on for a while. It is like a slow and lingering
death, like sipping delicately from a cupful of  slow-acting poison
that is gradually killing all my faculties. This is a conspiracy to
murder  my essence, my being, once so courageous, so brave, so
dynamic, so playful. I realize  what is going on around me but am
utterly helpless, despite my best efforts, to wage a  battle on my own
behalf. I am merely a disembodied voice. Those who once stood by me
have disappeared into the darkness.

I ask myself: what heinous crime have I committed? Why am I here, in
this singularly unenviable position? What sort of life is this where I
can neither cross my own threshold nor know the joys of human company.
What crime have I committed that I have to spend my life hidden away,
relegated to the shadows? For what crimes am I being punished by this
society, this land, this world? I wrote of my beliefs and my
convictions. I used words, not violence, to express my ideas. I did
not take recourse to pelting stones or bloodshed  to make my point.
Yet, I am considered a criminal. I am being persecuted because it was
felt that the right of others to express their opinions was more
legitimate than mine. To disobey the powers that be is to court public
crucifixion. Yes, I am a victim of this new crucifixion: is the nation
not a witness to my suffering? Does the nation not witness my immense
suffering, the death of my hopes, aspirations, and desires?

Does the nation not realize how immense the suffering must be for an
individual to renounce her most deeply held beliefs? How humiliated,
frightened, and insecure I must have been to allow my words to be
censored. Only the expurgation of what they considered offensive
satisfied them. If I had not agreed to their grotesque bowdlerization,
I would have been hounded and pursued till I dropped dead. Their
politics, their faith, their barbarism, and their diabolical purposes
are all intent on sucking the lifeblood out of me. They will continue
till they have bled me dry, expurgated these words, and removed these
truths which are so difficult for them to stomach. Words are harmless,
truth  defenceless and devoid of arms. Truth has always been
vanquished by the force of might. How can I – a powerless and
unprotected individual – battle brute force? Come what may, though, I
cannot take recourse to untruth.

What have I to offer but love and compassion? I have never wished ill
of anybody. Call me  romantic but I dream of a world of harmonious
coexistence free from the shackles of hatred and strife. In the way
that they used hatred to rip out my words, I would like to  use
compassion and love to rip the hatred out of them. Certainly, I am
enough of a realist to acknowledge that strife, hatred, cruelty, and
barbarism are integral elements of the human condition. This will not
change; such is the way of the world. I am an utterly
insignificant creature: how can I change all this? Even if I were to
be eradicated or exterminated it would not matter one whit to the
world at large. I know all this. Yet, I had imagined Bengal would be
different. I had thought the madness of her people was temporary. I
had thought that the Bengal I loved so passionately would never
forsake me.

She did.

Exiled from Bangladesh, I wandered around the world for many years
like a lost orphan. The moment I was given shelter in West Bengal it
felt as though all those years of numbing  tiredness just melted away.
I was able to resume a normal life in a beloved and familiar land. So
long as I survive, I will carry within me the vistas of Bengal, her
sunshine, her wet  earth, her very essence. The same Bengal whose
sanctuary I once walked a million blood-soaked miles to reach has now
turned its back upon me. I find it hard to believe that I am no longer
wanted in Bengal. I am a Bengali within and without; I live, breathe,
and dream in Bengali but, bizarrely, Bengal offers me no refuge

I am a guest in this land, I must be careful of what I say. I must do
nothing which violates the code of hospitality. I did not come here to
hurt anyone's sentiments or feelings. Arguably, I came here to be
hurt. Wounded and hurt in my own country, I suffered slights and
injuries in many lands before I reached India, where I knew I would be
hurt yet again.

This is, after all, a democratic and secular land where the politics
of the vote bank implies that being secular is equated with being
pro-Muslim fundamentalists. I do not wish to believe all this. I do
not wish to hear all this. Yet, all around me I read, hear, and see
evidence of this. I sometimes wish I could be like those mythical
monkeys, oblivious of all that is going on around me. Death who visits
me in many forms now feels like a friend. I feel like talking to him,
unburdening myself to him. You must realize I have no one to speak to,
no one to unburden myself to.

I have lost my beloved Bengal. The Bengal I cherished, whose land,
smells and sounds, hose very air was a part of me, is gone. I had to
leave Bengal. No child torn from its other's breast could have
suffered as much as I did during that painful parting. Once gain, I
have lost the mother from whose womb I was born. The pain is no less
than the  ay I lost my biological mother. My mother had always wanted
me to return home. That was something I could not do. After settling
down in Kolkata, I was able to tell my mother, ho by then was a memory
within me, that I had indeed returned home. How did it matter which
side of an artificial divide I was on? I do not have the courage to
tell my mother that my life now is that of a nomad. How can I tell her
that those who had given me shelter saw it fit to expel me so
unceremoniously? My sensitive mother would be hattered if I were to
tell her all this. I choose not to tell her, not even when I am lonely
and alone. Instead, I have now taken to convincing myself that I must
have transgressed somewhere, committed some grievous error. Why else
would I be in such an unenviable situation? Is daring to utter the
truth a terrible sin in this era of falsehood and deceit? Don't others
tell the truth? Surely they do not have to undergo such tribulations?
Why do I have to undergo such suffering? Is it because I am a woman?
What can be easier than assailing a woman?

I know I have not been condemned by the masses. If their opinion had
been sought, I am ctain the majority would have wanted me to stay on
in Bengal. But when has a  emocracy reflected the voice of the masses?
A democracy is run by those who hold the reins of power who do exactly
what they think fit. An insignificant individual, I must ow live life
on my own terms and write about what I believe in and hold dear. It is
not my desire to harm, malign, or deceive. I do not lie. I try not to
be offensive. I am but a simple writer who neither knows nor
understands the dynamics of politics. The way in which I was turned
into a political pawn, however, and treated at the hands of base
politicians, beggars belief. For what end you may well ask. A few
measly votes. It is I who have suffered; I am the only victim of this
great tragedy. The force of fundamentalism, which I have opposed and
fought for very many years, has only been strengthened by my tragic
defeat.

This is my beloved India, where I have been living and writing on
secular humanism, uman rights, and emancipation of women. This is also
the land where I have had to suffer and pay the price for my most
deeply held and fundamental convictions, where not a single political
party of any persuasion has spoken out in my favour, where no
non-governmental organization, women's rights' or human rights' group,
has stood by me or ondemned the vicious attacks launched upon me. This
India is not known to me . Yes, it s true that individuals in a
scattered, unorganized manner are fighting for my cause and
ournalists, writers, and intellectuals have spoken out in my favour. I
do not know whether hey are familiar with my work or not, indeed if
they have even read a single word I have
penned. Yet, I am grateful for their opinions and support.

Wherever individuals gather in groups, they seem to lose their power
to speak out. Frankly, this facet of the new India terrifies me. Then
again, is this a new India, or even a facet of a new India; or is it
the true face of the nation? I do not know. Since my earliest
childhood I have regarded India as a great land and a fearless nation.
The land of my dreams: enlightened, strong, progressive, and tolerant.
I wish to live to be proud of that India. I will die a happy person
the day I know India has forsaken darkness for light,
bigotry for tolerance. I await that day. I do not know whether I will
survive, but India and what she stands for has to survive, must be
allowed to survive.

18 December
Delhi