Outlook India
14 January 2008
MY INDIA STORY
I Am But A Disembodied Voice, The Living Dead
What have I done that I can neither cross my own
threshold nor enjoy human company?
Taslima Nasreen
Where am I? I am certain no one will believe me if I
say I have no answer to this apparently
straightforward question, but the truth is I just do
not know. And if I were to be asked how I am, I would
again answer: I don't know. I am like the living dead:
benumbed; robbed of the pleasure of existence and
experience; unable to move beyond the claustrophobic
confines of my room. Day and night, night and day.
Yes, this is how I have been surviving.
This nightmare did not begin when I was suddenly
bundled out of Calcutta—it has been going on for a
while. It is like a slow and lingering death, like
sipping delicately from a cupful of slow-acting poison
that is gradually killing all my faculties.
This is a conspiracy to murder my very essence, my
being, once so brave, playful.
This is a conspiracy to murder my essence, my being,
once so courageous, so brave, so dynamic, so playful.
I realise what is going on around me but am utterly
helpless, despite my best efforts, to wage a battle on
my own behalf. I am merely a disembodied voice.
Those who once stood by me have disappeared into the
darkness.
I ask myself: what heinous crime have I committed?
What sort of life is this where I can neither cross my
own threshold nor know the joys of human company? What
crime have I committed that I have to spend my life
hidden away, relegated to the shadows? For what crimes
am I being punished by this society, this land? I
wrote of my beliefs and my convictions. I used words,
not violence, to express my ideas. I did not take
recourse to pelting stones or bloodshed to make my
point. Yet, I am considered a criminal. I am being
persecuted because it was felt that the right of
others to express their opinions was more legitimate
than mine. Does India not realise how immense the
suffering must be for an individual to renounce her
most deeply-held beliefs? How humiliated, frightened,
and insecure I must have been to allow my words to be
censored. If I had not agreed to the grotesque
bowdlerisation of my writings by those who insisted on
it, I would have been hounded and pursued till I
dropped dead. Their politics, their faith, their
barbarism, and their diabolical purposes are all
intent on sucking the lifeblood out of me, because the
truths I write are so difficult for them to stomach.
How can I—a powerless and unprotected
individual—battle brute force? But come what may, I
cannot take recourse to untruth.
What have I to offer but love and compassion? In the
way that they used hatred to rip out my words, I would
like to use compassion and love to rip the hatred out
of them. Certainly, I am enough of a realist to
acknowledge that strife, hatred, cruelty and barbarism
are integral elements of the human condition. This
will not change; and how can an insignificant creature
like me change all this? If I were to be eradicated or
exterminated, it would not matter one whit to the
world at large. I know all this. Yet, I had imagined
Bengal would be different. I had thought the madness
of her people was temporary. I had thought that the
Bengal I loved so passionately would never forsake me.
She did.
Like they used hatred to rip out my words, I want to
use love to rip the hatred out of them.
Exiled from Bangladesh , I wandered around the world
for many years like a lost orphan. The moment I was
given shelter in West Bengal , it felt as though all
those years of numbing tiredness just melted away. I
was able to resume a normal life in a beloved and
familiar land. So long as I survive, I will carry
within me the vistas of Bengal, her sunshine, her wet
earth, her very essence. The same Bengal whose
sanctuary I once walked many blood-soaked miles to
reach has now turned its back upon me. I am a Bengali
within and without; I live, breathe, and dream in
Bengali. I find it hard to believe that I am no longer
wanted in Bengal.
I am a guest in this land, I must be careful of what I
say.
I must do nothing that violates the code of
hospitality. I did not come here to hurt anyone's
sentiments or feelings. Wounded and hurt in my own
country, I suffered slights and injuries in many lands
before I reached India, where I knew I would be hurt
yet again. For this is, after all, a democratic and
secular land where the politics of the votebank imply
that being secular is equated with being pro-Muslim
fundamentalist. I do not wish to believe all this. I
do not wish to hear all this. Yet, all around me I
read, hear, and see evidence of this. I sometimes wish
I could be like those mythical monkeys, oblivious to
all the evil that is going on around me. Death who
visits me in many forms now feels like a friend. I
feel like talking to him, unburdening myself to him. I
have no one else to speak to, no one else to whom I
can unburden myself.
I have lost my beloved Bengal . No child torn from its
mother's breast could have suffered as much as I did
during that painful parting. Once again, I have lost
the mother from whose womb I was born. The pain is no
less than the day I lost my biological mother. My
mother had always wanted me to return home. That was
something I could not do. After settling down in
Calcutta, I was able to tell my mother, who by then
was a memory within me, that I had indeed returned
home. How did it matter which side of an artificial
divide I was on? Now, I do not have the courage to
tell my mother that I have been unceremoniously
expelled by those who had once given me shelter, that
my life now is that of a nomad. My sensitive mother
would be shattered if I were to tell her all this.
Instead, I have now taken to convincing myself that I
must have transgressed somewhere, committed some
grievous error. Why else would I be in such a
situation? Is daring to utter the truth a terrible sin
in this era of falsehood and deceit? Is it because I
am a woman?
I know I have not been condemned by the masses. If
their opinion had been sought, I am certain the
majority would have wanted me to stay on in Bengal.
But when has a democracy reflected the voice of the
masses? A democracy is run by those who hold the reins
of power, who do exactly what they think fit. An
insignificant individual, I must now live life on my
own terms and write about what I believe in and hold
dear. It is not my desire to harm, malign, or deceive.
I do not lie. I try not to be offensive. I am but a
simple writer who neither knows nor understands the
dynamics of politics. The way in which I was turned
into a political pawn, however, and treated at the
hands of base politicians, beggars belief. For what
end, you may well ask. A few measly votes. The force
of fundamentalism, which I have opposed and fought for
many years, has only been strengthened by my defeat.
This is my beloved India , where I have been living
and writing on secular humanism, human rights and
emancipation of women. This is also the land where I
have had to suffer and pay the price for my most
deeply held and fundamental convictions, where not a
single political party of any persuasion has spoken
out in my favour, where no non-governmental
organisation, women's rights or human rights group has
stood by me or condemned the vicious attacks launched
upon me. This is an India I have never before known.
Yes, it is true that individuals in a scattered,
unorganised manner are fighting for my cause, and
journalists, writers, and intellectuals have spoken
out in my favour, even if they have never read a word
I have written. Yet, I am grateful for their opinions
and support.
Wherever individuals gather in groups, they seem to
lose their power to speak out. Frankly, this facet of
the new India terrifies me. Then again, is this a new
India , or is it the true face of the nation? I do not
know.Since my earliest childhood I have regarded India
as a great land and a fearless nation. The land of my
dreams: enlightened, strong, progressive, and
tolerant. I want to be proud of that India. I will die
a happy person the day I know India has forsaken
darkness for light, bigotry for tolerance. I await
that day. I do not know whether I will survive, but
India and what she stands for has to survive.
Taslima Nasreen is an exiled Bangladeshi writer who
was forced to leave her home in Calcutta in November,
and put under police protection at an undisclosed
location.
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