The Vanishing
Taslima Nasrin
Published on March 11, 2008
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 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.
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
vote bank 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.
From an undisclosed location, India
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Articles/taslima/Vanishing11308.htm
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Taslima Nasrin, is a Bengali Bangladeshi ex-physician turned
author, feminist and a secular humanist writes for mukto-mona from
India.
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