Taslima Nasrin’s return to Kolkata: the politics behind the ‘homecoming’

It does not happen often that posters are put up in the city to welcome a writer who has been away for almost two decades.

But Kolkata, unlike other cities, can go to great lengths to honour its artists and writers. The city, depending on the politics of the day, can also drive writers out, as it did to Taslima Nasrin in the autumn of 2007.

Her six-day visit to Kolkata was no less a political phenomenon than the violence that forced her out 19 years ago. Not only were posters put up celebrating her return, but the Chief Minister — Suvendu Adhikari — of the newly elected BJP government in West Bengal shared the dais with her. For the Chief Minister and the BJP leadership in Bengal, Ms. Nasrin’s visit was an opportunity to showcase a change from the earlier order. Mr. Adhikari, who has been in power for less than three months, indicated that the visit marked an improvement in law and order and his government’s refusal to let Muslim fundamentalist groups dictate terms.

“It is not just the face of the government that has changed in West Bengal, the system too has changed,” the Chief Minister said with Ms. Nasrin by his side. He promised security to the writer and said she could visit the city whenever she liked.

Reciprocating the gesture, she said at the end of her visit on Wednesday that she would visit Kolkata “whenever it calls me”.

Support for UCC

Soon after her arrival on July 31, the exiled Bangladeshi writer thanked the BJP leadership for facilitating her return to Kolkata. She said the city was the closest place to her home in Bangladesh, which she had to flee in 1994. Asked about her views on the different governments in the State, she said, “One government had forced me out, another did not allow me to return, and one has helped me return.”

The writer did not stop at highlighting the treatment meted out to her by the governments led by the Left Front, Trinamool Congress and BJP. She called for the implementation of the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) and the banning of madrasas, issues that are being aggressively pursued by the BJP government.

Ms. Nasrin’s visit was thus not just a homecoming but a political event. The Suvendu administration, which is in a hurry to change the earlier political order, highlighted her return as one of its biggest achievements; a correction of the “failure” of the previous dispensations to defend free speech in the face of religious pressure.

The Left parties and the Trinamool Congress did not have much to say on why the writer couldn’t return to Kolkata for so many years. Both regimes surrendered to the whims of Muslim fundamentalist groups and believed that her return could dent their Muslim support base.

The failure of the “secular forces” to allow Ms. Nasrin to return stemmed from selective appeasement and the prioritisation of vote-bank politics over free expression.

The BJP, which came to power after polarising Hindu votes, used the visit to suggest that the government would not bend to such pressure. In fact, it would go the extra mile to do the very opposite.

‘Imprisoning future’

Speaking at an event in Kolkata on August 1, Ms. Nasrin cited the example of Bangladesh and said that when the state bows to religious fanatics, violence can be averted for a brief period of time. However, the peace purchased so does not last long. “A society which kills its critic or imprisons and sends them to exile does not kill the critic alone but kills, imprisons and sends its future to exile,” she said.

Her return did not impact the politics of Bengal alone. It may also have cast a shadow on India-Bangladesh relations, which were under considerable strain after the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s regime in August 2024. Not to mention the irony of the Suvendu government, which has publicly spoken on driving every Bangladeshi out of the State, welcoming a Bangladeshi author in exile to polish its image on law and order, freedom of speech and rights of minorities.

Yet, on the question of freedom of speech and rights of minorities, the most glaring violations in the State today are happening under the drive to push men and women into Bangladesh only on suspicion of their being foreigners.