Author: Taslima Nasreen
Publication: Outlook
Date: January 14, 2007
URL: http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20080114&fname=BCol+Taslima+Nasreen&sid=1
Introduction: What have I done that I can
neither cross my own threshold nor enjoy human company?
Where am I? I am certain no one will believe
me if I say I have no answer to this apparently straightforward question,
but the truth is I just do not know. And if I were to be asked how I am, I
would again answer: I don't know. 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. Yes, this is how I have
been surviving.
This nightmare did not begin when I was suddenly
bundled out of Calcutta-it 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 realise
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?
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? 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.
Does India not realise 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.
If I had not agreed to the grotesque bowdlerisation of my writings by those
who insisted on it, 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, because the truths I write
are so difficult for them to stomach. How can I-a powerless and unprotected
individual-battle brute force? But come what may, I cannot take recourse to
untruth.
What have I to offer but love and compassion?
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; and how can
an insignificant creature like me change all this? 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 many blood-soaked miles to reach has now turned its back upon
me. I am a Bengali within and without; I live, breathe, and dream in Bengali.
I find it hard to believe that I am no longer wanted in Bengal.
I am a guest in this land, I must be careful
of what I say.
I must do nothing that violates the code of
hospitality. I did not come here to hurt anyone's sentiments or feelings.
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. For
this is, after all, a democratic and secular land where the politics of the
votebank imply that being secular is equated with being pro-Muslim fundamentalist.
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 to all the evil 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. I have no one else to speak
to, no one else to whom I can unburden myself.
I have lost my beloved Bengal. No child torn
from its mother's breast could have suffered as much as I did during that
painful parting. Once again, I have lost the mother from whose womb I was
born. The pain is no less than the day 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 Calcutta, I was able to tell my mother, who 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? Now, I do not have the courage to tell
my mother that I have been unceremoniously expelled by those who had once
given me shelter, that my life now is that of a nomad. My sensitive mother
would be shattered if I were to tell her all this. 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 a situation? Is daring to utter
the truth a terrible sin in this era of falsehood and deceit? Is it because
I am a woman?
I know I have not been condemned by the masses.
If their opinion had been sought, I am certain the majority would have wanted
me to stay on in Bengal. But when has a democracy 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 now 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. The force of fundamentalism, which I have
opposed and fought for many years, has only been strengthened by my defeat.
This is my beloved India, where I have been
living and writing on secular humanism, human 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
organisation, women's rights or human rights group has stood by me or condemned
the vicious attacks launched upon me. This is an India I have never before
known. Yes, it is true that individuals in a scattered, unorganised manner
are fighting for my cause, and journalists, writers, and intellectuals have
spoken out in my favour, even if they have never read a word I have written.
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 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 want 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.
Taslima Nasreen is an exiled Bangladeshi writer
who was forced to leave her home in Calcutta in November, and put under police
protection at an undisclosed location.