[Reader-list] A YEAR OF SHAME

[Shuddhabrata Sengupta]

Dear M.Ray,

Thank you very much for posting this. It is very good to know that  
Kolkata stands by the exiled writer Taslima Nasrin. I hope that she  
will one day be able to return to live there in liberty and dignity.

regards

Shuddha

On 10-Nov-08, at 7:15 PM, MRSG wrote:

> Invitation
>
> A YEAR OF SHAME
>
> On the eve of one year of throwing out of Taslima Nasrin from Kolkata
> An anthology of Poems for Taslima to be released by
> Eminent educationist and thinker Amlan Dutta,
>
> An Evening Of Protest With Poems of
>
> Tarun Sanyal, Sarat Mukhopadhy, Joy Goswami, Sabyasachi Deb,  
> Shrijato, Kalikrishna Guha, Farukh Ahmed, Lalmia Molla, Naser  
> Hussain, Ranjit Gupta, Namita Chowdhury, Mousumi Bilkis, Taimur  
> Khan, Pallab Kirtania, Partho Bandyopadhyay, Bipul Chakraborty,  
> Sumitava Ghosal and others. Giyasuddin and Saswati Ghosh will speak
>
> ON 19 DECEMBER, 2008. ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS, CONFERENCE HALL,  
> KOLKATA, 6 PM
> Organised by CAAMB (Campaign Against Atrocities on Minorities of  
> Bangladesh), Kolkata
>
>
>
> A year back, on 22 December 2007, Taslima Nasrin was hounded out of  
> Kolkata by Islamic fundamentalists. She was earlier hounded out of  
> Bangladesh, roamed like a refugee throughout the world, but always  
> believed that she at least had a safe house in the left and secular  
> city of Kolkata. We also believed that.
>
> The process of hounding out Taslima from West Bengal began long  
> back. She was barred to read her poems in Medinipur, she was not  
> allowed to inaugurate The Book Fair in Siliguri. To support these  
> fundamentalists, Left Front government banned her book. Our protest  
> was too mild. And then finally on 22 December 2007, Left front  
> government threw her out of Kolkata after a day-long violence by a  
> group of Muslims in Kolkata. The expulsion was supported by  
> Trinamul leader Mamata Bandopadhyay in her earlier lectures to the  
> madrasa students, CPI-M supremo Biman Basu told that Taslima should  
> have left herself earlier, Congress leader Subrata Mukherjee said  
> that the violence on 21 December was like the freedom struggle.  
> Kolkata had to realise who really controls the so-called cultural  
> capital of India. Kolkatans never faced such a shame earlier.
>
> Taslima still cannot come back to Kolkata. We have lived through a  
> year of shame.
>
> We shall not forget. We shall not remain silent. Join us there
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Shuddhabrata Sengupta
The Sarai Programme at CSDS
Raqs Media Collective
shuddha at sarai.net
www.sarai.net
www.raqsmediacollective.net