Click to play videoNew Delhi: Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasrin has criticised the Indian Government for denying her citizenship and extending her visa by only six months each time.
Speaking exclusively to Karan Thapar on CNN-IBN’s Devil’s Advocate, Taslima said she loves to live in West Bengal and it’s humane to allow her to live in India.
Karan Thapar: Ms Nasrin lets turn to your application to become an Indian citizen, it's almost 2 years since you applied and even so you haven’t yet got a decision. And in the meantime your visa is only extended 6 months at a time. Do you think you are treated fairly?
Taslima Nasrin: I don’t think so.
Karan Thapar: Why?
Taslima Nasrin: You know most people in this country - as far as I know I want to be a citizen of India. I was persecuted in my country. I had to live in exile. And my language is Bengali. I love to live in Bengal. I love to live in India. And it's humane to allow me to live in India
Taslima also said she had no hopes for change in home country Bangladesh despite efforts to revive democracy and a concerted effort to arrest or even kill jehadi elements.
"I live in tension. Anytime I may have to leave this country. Where would I go?" she added.
She said her efforts to meet with West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to press her case have been in vain.
Taslima said she was would like to be known more as an activist who can influence society than as a writer. "I have a dream, a dream of a beautiful world where no woman is oppressed," she said, while launching a diatribe on Islam.
"I like to think it is the beginning of change but who would come into power?" she queries. "The same old political parties who are pro-fundamentalists, who use Islam for their own interests and get votes from ignorant masses. They will come into power and will never allow me into my home country," she said.
"If any religion keeps people in ignorance, if any religion allows people to persecute other people of different faiths and if any religion keeps women in slavery then I can't accept that religion."
Taslima also brushes aside criticism that she was pandering to the prejudices of the Western world by blaming Islam itself, rather than the way it is practised.
Watch the complete Devil's Advocate interview on CNN-IBN, at 8:30 PM, on Sunday, April 22
(With agency inputs)
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