City literati rise late to Taslima's defence

KOLKATA: It took an entire week for Bengal''s best-known poets, writers and intellectuals to articulate a protest against the Left Front government''s unprecedented step to ban Taslima Nasrin''s controversial autobiography Dwikhondito.
On Thursday, poet Nirendranath Chakrabarty, Magsaysay award winning author Mahasveta Devi and artist Paritosh Sen joined activists like Maitreyee Chatterjee, theatre personality Bibhas Chakrabarty, poet Joy Goswami, artists Bijon Chowdhury and Prakash Karmakar to sign an open letter to chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, expressing “grave concern and anger� at the state''s decision to ban the book.
In an interview to TNN from New York on Sunday, Taslima had expressed disappointment at the lack of support among intellectuals in the city.
“The reaction of my friends and other literary figures in Kolkata has hurt me. They may not realise it, but by keeping quiet or supporting the ban — they are inviting a dark and shameful period in the history of Bengali literature. They will be remembered for inviting a restriction on freedom of speech.�
Four days later, the letter, signed also by the likes of Shibnarayan Roy, Sukumari Bhattacharya, Shamik Bandyopadhyay and Jaya Mitra states in unequivocal terms, “The state government has banned the book citing a few pages in the book which apparently can create communal strife. We are shocked at the state''s decision to interfere with and obstruct freedom of expression.
This is not in keeping with the democratic fabric of the state and its culture. People have a right to buy or reject a book. It can give rise to debate. But it is unthinkable that a book is banned in this fashion in a healthy democracy.�
The statement, written in Bengali also goes on to state: “India is not a dictatorship, nor is a religious state or a country ruled by martial law. So how could the state take a decision of this magnitude based solely on the opinion of some bureaucrats and a handful of literary figures? Our request is that the ban be lifted immediately and let people be the final judge of whether to accept or reject the book.�
While the chief minister''s secretariat was unavailable for comment, Nasrin''s publisher Shibani Mukherjee expressed happiness that some people at least had “dared to protest.�