Author Taslima Nasrin is slated to attend an event in Kolkata in India’s West Bengal state on August 1. The city threw her out and slammed its door shut on her face 19 years ago.
A self-proclaimed atheist and feminist, Nasrin is of Bangladeshi origin and was exiled from Bangladesh in 1994, when her book Lajja (“Shame”) created a furor, prompting Islamic fundamentalists to issue a fatwa and death threats against her.
After living in Europe and the U.S. for a decade, she moved to Kolkata, where Muslim fundamentalists were against her presence from the start.
Before she arrived in the city in 2004, West Bengal’s Left Front government had banned her book, “Dwikhandito” (“Split in Two”), arguing that the book could “spark off communal tension.” Eventually, Muslim fundamentalists forced the government to drive her out in 2007. Nasrin, who holds a Swedish passport, has been living in Delhi since then. She holds a Swedish passport.
Nasrin’s return to Kolkata has now become a tool for the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has been ruling India since 2014 and West Bengal since May this year, to showcase itself as a liberal party that allowed her to flourish.
