Well, before beginning to write this article,I was wondering what to fill up in the region/country, should it be ‘Bangladesh’, the native country of Taslima where she was born, developed as a writer, or as ‘India’ to which she got defected into exile or to the unknown country she has proposed to go , but finally I decided to choose ‘India’ where she presently resides in an uneasy exile in an unknown residence.
Having born as a muslim and still having the muslim name with her, ‘Taslima Nasreen’,didn’t she learn to ‘Be a Roman in Rome’?Perhaps her reasoning , independant thoughts, her conviction, her education etc propelled her to differ with the back ground in which she was brought up. Perhaps the same factors motivated her to write something different what she thought was right to her conscience and conviction, but to what result ? She became an alien in her own country and invited the wrath of her own country men.
Nor it was a flower path in the country where she is in exile.The country which gave her asylum has got its own problems, issues,policies and it cannot be bent for the cause of a writer with whom it sympathised.But I think Taslima being an internationally reputed writer is a mixure of opposites, an idealist, driven by passion not able to fit herself into reality.
If she is strong in her conviction and so rigid, why did she sgree to for the removal of some portions in her novel which were considered objectionable and invited the wrath of the fundementalists in her own country and elsewhere ?
Is she not aware that her own motherland, ‘Bangladesh’ is poor and struggling to come up after a devastation sufferred by an unprecedented hurrycane?Is it not her duty to think about her motherland and do something for her cause, which was born out of the sacrifices of her country’s great leaders like Mujib-ur-Rahman and his successors ?
It is true that Taslima, being an internationally reputed writer may get invitations from many countries and even they may offer asylums, but muslims are everywhere in the world and there are fundementalists too. From Bangladesh to India, from India to unknown destination and from there to where ?