Nasreen landed in Kolkata on Friday, which she had described as “homecoming”.
Nearly two decades after being forced out of Kolkata over a controversial book of hers, exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen will make her first public appearance in the city at a literary event on Saturday.
Her return to Kolkata for an anti-fundamentalism programme where she is expected to recite poetry has become a cultural marker of West Bengal’s political transition under the new government.
Nasreen landed in Kolkata on Friday, which she had described as “homecoming”.
Besides Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, noted Bengali author Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay and several writers, artists and intellectuals are expected to attend the programme.
The ruling BJP is seeking to project her return as an affirmation of free speech while organisers insist the event is intended solely to celebrate literature and opposition to religious extremism.
Nasreen in Kolkata under BJP rule has revived a debate over freedom of expression, secularism and the state’s response to religious sensitivities.
The BJP has sought to present the event as the correction of the “failures” of the Left Front and Trinamool Congress governments to protect free speech in the face of religious pressure.
On the other hand, the Left Front and the Trinamool Congress have consistently maintained that the decision to ask Nasreen to leave Kolkata in 2007 was dictated entirely by law-and-order considerations as communal tensions escalated in parts of the city.
Organisers have repeatedly stressed that Saturday’s programme is neither a political rally nor a government function but a literary gathering dedicated to opposing religious fundamentalism and reaffirming the principle of freedom of expression.
Taslima had told PTI that returning to the city for her first public appearance felt like coming back to “my own country” and hoped that the visit would reaffirm the importance of freedom of expression and protection of dissenting voices.
“Bengal has never been divided in my heart by a border or a barbed-wire fence. The door to the eastern part of Bengal remains closed to me, so for now, this part of Bengal is my home,” she had said.
The acclaimed writer also described the visit as symbolising the return of a voice that religious fundamentalists had once sought to silence and thanked the organisers and the state government for facilitating her visit and providing security.
Nasreen fled Bangladesh in 1994 after facing death threats over her novel ‘Lajja’ and settled in Kolkata in 2004, embracing the city as her cultural refuge.
Her stay ended abruptly in November 2007 after violent protests erupted over portions of her memoir ‘Dwikhandito’, which had already been banned by the then Left Front government in 2003 for allegedly hurting the sentiments of sections of the Muslim community.