Exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen returned to Kolkata on Friday for the first time in nearly 19 years, calling the visit an emotional homecoming to a city she still considers her own. Nasreen is scheduled to attend an anti-fundamentalism literary programme on Saturday. Her return also comes months after the BJP assumed power in West Bengal.
Ahead of her arrival, Nasreen described the visit as a return to "my own country". "I feel as though I am returning to my own country. 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 said.
Reflecting on her departure from the city, she said she had never left by choice. "I never left Kolkata willingly; the then West Bengal government forced me to leave the state. Yet I never stopped hoping that one day I would return," she said.
She said that Kolkata had given her a home, readers and a sense of belonging, adding that her return symbolised not only a personal homecoming but also the resilience of free expression in the face of religious extremism. She also thanked the organisers and the present West Bengal government for facilitating her visit and providing security, while maintaining that a writer's freedom should be protected as a fundamental right, irrespective of the government in power.
Taslima Nasreen left Bangladesh in 1994 after receiving death threats over her novel Lajja and settled in Kolkata in 2004. However, she was asked to leave the city in 2007 following violent protests over her memoir Dwikhandito, which had earlier been banned by the then Left Front government.
Her return has drawn political attention, with the BJP describing it as a reaffirmation of free speech, while previous Left Front and Trinamool Congress governments have maintained that the 2007 decision was taken to preserve public order during communal unrest.
Organisers of Saturday's event said the programme is intended to honour Nasreen's lifelong stand against religious fundamentalism and celebrate the principle of freedom of expression.
