The same ole rut for Taslima Nasreen

The only connection M F Hussain, Salman Rushdie and Taslima Nasreen have is that of Fatwa. Reason being- they’ve been non-conformists, they have been the infamous iconoclastic lot who’ve faced the rash consequence of offending the ever-volatile- sensitivities of the masses and the spineless polity.

Its Nasreen yet again and this time I’m irked beyond the usual reaction of- why can’t she be left alone? Why can’t a writer for once express without the fear of being condemned? And why cant freedom of expression be absolute, especially when it tries to reform the archaic societal ways? This time I’m angered by the fact that she withdrew her stance, her very own word in her biography - Dwikhandita (Split in Two). Being a target of extreme fundamentalism, this woman has fought it through and continued writing without any pseudo undertones and mild remarks. But what happened to her on this occasion, is what has left me thinking. Is it the fear of never getting the entry to India, the land she has considered home for a while, or is it living in denial that the very place she thought was accommodating with respect to secularism, religion and above all humanity (the general outsiders perception of a tolerant India) has proved her wrong.

For someone like her, revoking the Indian passport should come easy, she has been living in exile for nearly five years now, but here is Taslima with battered ego, teary eyes and a soulful manuscript subject to censure and yes of course a welcome-back-to-incredible India.

India needs to give a serious edit check to her preamble; she needs to accept the fact that she is a sectarian old lady, limping on the crutches of democracy. If the so called pretty picture of constitutional rights was in place we would not have Taslima Nasreens and we would instead be a tolerant society not in words but in essence.

Tolerance is subjective, but how subjective is it in the national framework? Are we supposed to grow only in population and GDP numbers or grow as liberal minds that are allowed to think and act and not be threatened, scurrying around the globe to save their life?

The way we are still addressed as a ‘developing nation’ since donkeys years, we are an accommodating lot of tolerant Indians is a terrible false status that we have been carrying and will carry as we aren’t willing to give chance to voices that can make a difference, after all.

An aside: My opinion space barely reaches out to Rushdie and his flamboyant ways. Without doubt outspoken and blatant with his views on Islam, he hasn’t really hit the chord consistently and has been in limelight for lame reasons.