KOLKATA: Confined to a ‘safe house’ somewhere in New Delhi and shut out from the world except for phone calls and e-mails, controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen will celebrate the new year in a no-man’s land of fading hope, despair and crushing loneliness.
“I am only breathing. I don’t think I am alive like you are. Can anybody live like this? It was beyond my imagination that in a secular democracy this can happen to a writer,” Nasreen said from her room in an undisclosed location.
Nasreen, who has been living under state protection since November when she was removed from Kolkata after street riots over her “anti-Islam” writings, has been virtually told by Indian officials that that she could either continue to stay in the national capital confined in a room or leave the country.
“What do you think? Will they let me go? You are a journalist, you can tell better. They want to break me psychologically and they might succeed also since my confidence and mental strength are flagging already. I can’t live like this any more,” she said.
The feisty woman went on to add: “But I also want to see how long they can keep me like this. I have decided not to move out of India on my own.”
Nasreen would not be allowed to meet any friend at her “undisclosed” residence in the new year.
“The rule they have made is strange. If I want to meet someone neither can I visit the person’s house not can he or she come over to my place. We would have to meet in a third place. Is it not draconian?” she asked.
“The home ministry decides everything about my visitors. UTV wanted to make a film on me but even they were not allowed to meet me,” Nasreen said, her voice choking with emotion.
But she considers herself lucky to be with a mobile phone and laptop with Internet connection. “Send me an e-mail. I will e-mail you back something. I could come here only with my laptop. All my things are in Kolkata. I have left my life there.”
“The idea is to keep me away from media completely. They want people to forget me. Why? Under this circumstance, one cannot write. I have never ever lived in such misery. I am still in a state of shock,” she said.
Nasreen is still confused about that fateful day on November 21 when Kolkata burst into flames over a protest against her continuing stay in the city and she was hastily sent packing - first to Jaipur and then to Delhi.
“Those who participated in street riots that day did not even hear about me before. They were a small section of people. I don’t think my plight would fetch any number of votes to anybody. And this heightened security is also meaningless since I don’t think my life is so threatened that I would have to live like a prisoner,” she said.
The 45-year-old writer is being kept by the Intelligence Bureau in a ‘safe house’ within the National Security Guards complex in New Delhi.
In a delicate balancing act, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee has promised to “shelter” Nasreen but urged her to “refrain from activities and expressions” that may hurt the sentiments of Indian people and harm relations with friendly countries.
On November 30, Nasreen had agreed to remove controversial portions from her biography Dwikhandita (Split in Two). Though Marxist patriarch Jyoti Basu said on December 25 that Nasreen was welcome to return to Kolkata, the Left Front government in West Bengal has chosen to remain silent on her plight.
Artistes, writers and rights activists of Kolkata continue to mobilise support for the writer.- IANS |
