"I Have Done No Wrong"

"I have not indulged in politics. I have request; please stop playing politics with authors. Let an author be granted an environment conducive to writing, conducive to free thought. Let an author be granted the freedom to write fearlessly. That is my humble request."

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by Taslima Nasreen

(February 18, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) I have done no wrong. Yet, for four long months, I was kept under house arrest in Kolkata, not allowed to go out. The government repeatedly told me to leave the country or to leave the state. Go somewhere else. But I refused to leave Kolkata, my beloved Kolkata, to leave the household that I had painstakingly built up over a long time, to leave my own home. Refused, for I saw no reason to leave. I had been unable to believe that there could be riots in the city because of me. Could not believe that because of me people would die in the city. In my mind, I know that I feel entirely secure in this city. I have roamed around safely, with no fear, on the streets of Kolkata, without even one bodyguard. Not a single fundamentalist ever barred my way. Those who came near me have done so out of love. One or two Muslim leaders have sometimes spoken against me, because they have had political axes to grind. By provoking the common people, they have had no religious sentiment in mind. Their intentions have been purely political. I believe with conviction that the mayhem on 21 November was completely unrelated to whatever I had written. Had there been any, I would have been able to return to Kolkata after I expunged the controversial sections from Dwikhandita.

I am sure that the boys who went rampaging on the streets on 21 November were totally ignorant about my writings. The hatred and anger that made them brickbat the police was born of some other reason. They were not angry because I lived in the city. The agitation was grafted into their minds by others.

The conspiracy to drive me out of the state had been festering for a long time – on 22 November it somehow bore fruit. But how was I at fault? For what crimes had I committed to remain confined in Kolkata, for what crimes was I driven out of Kolkata, for what crimes do I have to remain a prisoner in a nowhere room in Delhi, suffering unbelievable uncertainty, despair, and desolation? I do not even have the right to leave that room. A room into which none of my friends, none of my relatives, can ever enter.

Why am I kept confined in an atmosphere where I cannot even breathe? What have I done wrong? The Central Government is saying that they are giving me security. But what kind of security is this? Am I being given security by being imprisoned, or is it security for someone else? Even in a jail, there are visiting hours. There are none here. Even convicts in a jail know when they will be released. I do not know when I will find release from this unendurable loneliness, from this uncertainty, from this deathly silence.

I was interned in Kolkata to force me to go away, to go just anywhere else from the country or the state. Would I be too wrong to say that the intention behind incarcerating me in my present nowhere place is to make me leave this country out of exasperation? If that is not so, why am I being shackled? Why am I not being allowed to go to Kolkata in spite of alleged entreaties? Why am I not being allowed to lead a normal life, even in Delhi?

No one agitated against me in Delhi, no meetings were held, and no one arranged processions of marchers. I have received no death threats. Rather, the secular, conscious people belonging to the civil society have held meetings in my defence, have marched to support me. Numbers of intellectuals are writing to the authorities, demanding my release and defending my right to free speech. Even then, why should I have to spend a life behind bars? When someone is threatened, protection ordinarily is provided to allow the person to continue his or her life. Is everyone who is threatened for anything required to hide in an undisclosed location, all their movements restricted? Why should I be held in a state of limbo? Is there any rationale behind this?

I will not leave this country. Will not leave, because there is no other country in the whole world that I can call my own. I am not the most threatened person in this country. Anybody in any country can threaten anyone. For the last thirteen years I have had constantly to move from one country to another. I am more a victim of the politics of pampering the fundamentalists than of the fundamentalist threats. The fundamentalists did not chase me out of Bangladesh in 1994, for I was driven out by the Bangladesh government. I am not allowed to return to my own country even today – at whose behest? The order did not come from a fundamentalist. It came from the government. I do not believe that the government is worried about my safety. The Bangladesh government cared only for their own safety.

I do not want to think of India as another Bangladesh. I firmly believe that the Indian Government can provide me with the little protection that I need and allow me to lead a normal life. Will there be riots because of me, will people die because of me? Such fears are baseless. There are reasons for fomenting such fears. There still are. There has never been a riot anywhere because of me. Riots do not erupt because of a writer. Before the book was banned, and after the High Court lifted the ban, the book was sold without hindrance. No one agitated against the book. I have been shown the spectre of riots many times. There were attempts to drive me away from this country by scaring me.

I want to say it very simplly: I am not the culprit. I have also said that I have never written anything to hurt anyone’s sentiments.

What wrong have I done? I look at a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, and a Christian each as a person. Is that a wrong thing to do? I want everyone to be treated an equal. I am tirelessly writing in support of humanity, of human rights. Some fundamentalists, some conservatives, and some hidebound narrow-minded people are vilifying me. That has never deterred me from writing about human beings and humanity. People who are victims of poverty, deprived of education and health, whose rights are violated because of having a different faith, I have always stood beside. I stand beside the Muslims in India, just as I stood beside the minority Hindus in Bangladesh. Those fundamentalists who are shouting themselves hoarse with the vile intention of playing politics are not representative of the Muslims in India.

Is now not the time to point out who are the enemies of society and who are not? Is it not yet the time for me to be free of this unwarranted imprisonment? Have I made a mistake in writing for humanity, for freedom of thought, for freedom of speech in India? For what crime is India’s Government punishing me? Will the people of India watch how I waste away in pain, in despair, in emptiness? How I die in darkness, away from the public gaze? How I die without a country, without a state, deprived of social intercourse, without a friend? What crime have I committed for which this secular democracy is punishing me?

I have not indulged in politics. I have a request; please stop playing politics with authors. Let an author be granted an environment conducive to writing, conducive to free thought. Let an author be granted the freedom to write fearlessly. That is my humble request. That is the only thing I ask of this country. From time immemorial, India has sheltered all who asked. I too am proud of this great liberal tradition. Let this writer be proud of India for the rest of her life.