Why has Taslima become untouchable for parties

The Left Front government in West Bengal is still silent on whether or not controversial Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen can go back to Kolkata. In an exclusive interview to CNN-IBN's National affairs Editor, Diptosh Majumdar, Taslima says she was forced to leave Kolkata. The CPM denies this and says that Taslima left Kolkata of her own free will and her fate can now only be decided by the Central Government.

Taslima also pleaded to the state governments of India not to give in to the diktat of fundamentalists. She said that it was these fundamentalists who are a threat to the free society.

The question that was being asked on CNN-IBN's Face The Nation was: Is the Taslima case more about politics than about freedom of expression?

To try and answer the question, on the panel of experts were Mayor of Kolkata, Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya; MP Congress party Rashid Alvi; Rajya Sabha MP and Editor Pioneer, Chandan Mitra and art journalist, S Kalidas.

Politics over Taslima

Taslima Nasreen has said that just like the families in Nandigram, she too does not have a home to go to. Now, the political blame game over the author is continuing. This is what some of the politicians have been saying -- BJP Deputy Leader, Lok Sabha, V K Malhotra said, "If after giving shelter and a visa to a person, we cannot protect her and we cannot allow her to travel, then this shows how our country is surrendering to fundamentalists."

CPM politburo member, Sitaram Yechury, meanwhile had said, "Taslima has been staying in Kolkata for over three years. Protection had been provided to her by the West Bengal government but what will happen to her when her visa expires shortly is for the Centre to decide. But the point that we want to make is that it is an ideological fight that L K Advani is talking about. We'd like to ask you why these double standards on the issue when it comes to the issue of artist M F Hussain? As far as he is concerned, he is not even being allowed to return to India because of the cases filed by the RSS, BJP and their other affiliates."

It seems that politicians are simply out to use the Taslima case to score points over each other. The initial SMS results for the question being asked showed 94 per cent of the people who voted in agreed that the case was more about politics and less about freedom of expression whereas only 6 per cent believed it was the other way round.

Kolkata unsafe for writers?

The present state of affairs in Kolkata would make most people conclude that West Bengal, which has been the home of great minds such as Rabindranath Tagore, Bankim Chandra, and Sarat Chandra is not safe for writers.

Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya said that whoever concluded this, would have done so in a hurried, irrational and unreasonable manner. He said, "The city of Kolkata is heaven for all free-thinking writers. Taslima can come back to the city whenever she pleases and there will be no difficulty for her. The Home Secretary has made an unequivocal statement saying that if the author wants to come back, she can do so whenever she pleases. He has also said that the state government will provide all security to her available under the law of the land."

"There should be no apprehension in her mind that she will not be looked after properly or that there will be no security for her when she comes back to the state," he added.

However, the fact of the matter is that the author herself seems to think that she will not be safe in the city anymore.

Hindu groups biased?

A question that has been uppermost in the mind of the public is why was it okay for Taslima Nasreen to demand her freedom, to ask for freedom of expression to write her books, but it was not okay for artist M F Hussain to demand the same freedom when it came to his paintings? The Hindu groups seem to be attacking Hussain but protecting Taslima.

Chandan Mitra was of the opinion that the two were absolutely different cases, but he said that the fact of the matter was that no one had ever stopped M F Hussain from coming back to India.

"I think it is disingenuous on part of the West Bengal government to use Hussain as an example and then say that he is not being allowed to come back into the country. No one asked M F Hussain to leave the country in the first place. Some cases have been filed against him, but people in the country have a right to file cases. The honourable thing for M F Hussain to do would be to come back and face the cases that have been filed against him and wait for the court to decide on them," said Chandan Mitra.

"However, if M F Hussain is attacked and asked to leave his home, I will be the first one to defend his rights," added Mitra.

At this point, he was interrupted by S Kalidas who said, "Mr Mitra will agree that M F Hussain's works have been vandalised both in India and abroad, his museums have been vandalised and there are threats to him both from the extreme Hindu groups as well as Islamic fundamentalists. Not only that, there are other examples of vandalism -- we have seen how the BJP behaved at the Baroda University's art faculty only a few months ago. They attacked the university's examination process, so I don't understand what Mr Mitra is talking about."

At this point, Chandan Mitra backtracked saying, "People have a right to protest, though no one is defending the violence that took place. There are cases going on against the vandalisers."

However, it seems as if Muslim groups like the All India Minority Forum in India do not have a right to protest and that the right was something that was reserved only for the extremist Hindu groups.

To this, Chandan Mitra said, "Everyone has a right to protest and this is a democratic country, but all I am saying is that the state must protect such citizens and that is where the CPM failed. Instead, the CPM hounded Taslima out of Kolkata, when it had the responsibility to protect her."

But Mitra's statement sounded hollow and one could argue that the BJP had similarly hounded M F Hussain out of India.

Why is Congress silent?

In all of this controversy, the Congress party has remained a silent party and it seemed that they were being revisited by the bad days they had seen during the Shah Bano case, where in the quest for votes, the party would pander to fundamentalist elements. The party was seemed to want to listen to saner voices, seemed to be giving in to backward looking forces, all in the hope of getting more votes.

Rashid Alvi denied this saying, the Congress was certainly not silent, but the issue itself was not important enough for the party to come forward and make a statement.

An incredulous Kalidas interrupted Alvi at this point saying he was amazed that the Congress did not think the issue was not important enough to even come forward and make a statement on. "Jawaharlal Nehru taught us that freedom is indivisable. Does this mean that the Pakistani cricket team is also not going to be allowed into Kolkata?" Kalidas wanted to know.

Alvi then hastily corrected himself saying that freedom of expression was available to everyone in India, but that no one was allowed to condemn any faith or religion.

However, the fact of the matter was, that one has to still see a statement from the Congress party condemning the Taslima Nasreen incident. There is no state from the Centre on what is going to happen to Taslima Nasreen now. Though she has been granted a visa, will she now be given refuge status? And what is the status of her freedom in India now? It seems as if the Centre has no ready answers to these questions as of now.

Alvi however, continued to defend the Government of India saying that Taslima herself had claimed that she is being provided with adequate security and that she has not faced any problem. "Her visa has also been extended. What more can the Centre do for her?" he wanted to know.

At this point, Kalidas wanted to know from Alvi whether the same could be provided for M F Hussain. "We asked the Home Minister this question last year and no response was forthcoming at that time," Kalidas said.

To this, Alvi said, "Not simply M F Hussain, but every citizen of this country should be provided security if his or her life is in danger."

Is art an absolute freedom?

However, amidst all this heated debate, a question that needed answering was whether art could be described as absolute freedom. Should religious sentiments not be taken into account? Should an artist not be bound by the duty to not hurt any religious community?

To this Kalidas said that in a multi-religious, multi-lingual, multi-ethnic society like India there is no clear distinction between the Church and the state.

"In India, we have too many churches. Name one author or one artist in this country who might not have created or caused imaginary hurt to some religion or to some sect or the other. The Syrian Christians of Kerala hate author Arundhati Roy's guts. You can also take the example of author Salman Rushdie. I don't think that freedom can be divided into categories. It has to be indivisible and it has to be absolute," Kalidas said.

Is this to say that state governments in India are so imprisoned in the politics of minoritism that they simply cannot uphold any of the basic freedoms anymore?

To this, Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya said that it was not fair to impute everything to West Bengal. "We believe in the freedom of expression. If you do not agree with somebody else's expression, then you have the freedom to vent your expression, but you cannot throw them out or kill their ideas. Someone has the freedom to say 'x', others have the freedom to say 'y'. It os for the common man to be the judge of these expressions."

He said that the stand of the West Bengal government wsa nothing to do with the Panchayat elections or any other polls. However, then why was not the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, an author himself, welcoming another author with open arms?

"He speaks through his government and the Home Secretary has made it clear that Taslima is welcome in the state and that she will be provided with adequate security," Bhattacharya stated.

He also added that there has been no drop in the popularity of the state government with regard to this incident. He said that there was only some simmering discontent, which too shall be gradually taken care of.

Chandan Mitra jumped into the discussion at this point saying that the ground rules must apply to everybody. "I do not believe in absolute freedom in a complex, multi-lingual, multi-ethnic country like India. I had supported the ban on Satanic Verses. Similarly I think that the Danish cartoonist who caricatured Prophet Mohammad was wrong and that those cartoons should never be published in India," he said.

"I do believe that there are some lines that need to be drawn, but at the same time, there are laws in the country, there are cases that can be instituted and those should be left for the courts to decide. You cannot simply throw someone out and then have the State Secretary of CPM, Biman Bose, who incidentally is more powerful than the CM, says that Taslima better leave the state. After that, how on earth does Taslima get back to Kolkata? This is something that I would like to ask Mr Bhattacharya," he added.

At this point, Rashid Alvi jumped back into the debate saying that one cannot be allowed to hurt the sentiments of anybody. "People cannot simply start walking nude on the streets in the name of art," he said.

But he was interrupted by Kalidas who said that there was a poetess by the name of Akhamai Devi in Karnataka who did just that and she is revered in the state now. However, Alvi stuck to his stand saying that all this was not acceptable in the name art.

Nonetheless, despite the debate, it was evident that the Government still did not seem to be taking any concrete action to show that it believed in the freedom of expression.

FINAL SMS POLL RESULTS: Is the Taslima case more about politics than about freedom of expression?

Yes: 96 per cent

No: 4 per cent

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