Taslima Nasrin on the run!

The daughter of Eternal Bangladesh and the controversial writer Taslima Nasrin is on a run and our “Statesmen” are giving a very ludicrous exhibition of opportunism and self interests. It is not surprising that CPM, which has shown its insensitivity in the case of Nandigram violence, literally expelled Taslima Nasrin out of West Bengal citing ‘security reasons’. It is believed that the pressure to move Taslima Nasrin out of Kolkata began as early as August and involved the then police commissioner, Prasun Mukherjee who reportedly told the author that he was representing the chief minister.
Ever since the violent protests broke out in Kolkata last week, Taslima has been shifted from state to state, and now, the Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi has confirmed that she's in New Delhi. After leaving Kolkata, she went to Jaipur but she was denied asylum.

According to our Constitution, India is SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and the Constitution has resolved to ensure every citizen of India JUSTICE, social, economic and political; LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship; EQUALITY of status and of opportunity;
and to promote among them all FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation. The civil liberties granted in the name of Fundamental Rights take precedence over any other law of the land. They include individual rights common to most liberal democracies, such as equality before the law, freedom of speech and expression, freedom of association and peaceful assembly, freedom of religion, and the right to constitutional remedies for the protection of civil rights such as habeas corpus.

What has made our politicians so insensitive to an individual who is trying to seek asylum in our nation which is the biggest democracy in the whole world and where freedom of expression is a fundamental right. Why a writer who was courageous enough to voice her opinion has to run around like a fugitive whereas the real fugitives and perpetrator are gallivanting everywhere?

Something is acutely disturbing in India as it crosses the 60th milestone of Independence. Communalism and intolerance are rising in a country that is found on the bedrock of secularism. Clearly, the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Musalmeen legislators and their army of hoodlums who barged into a press conference hall in Hyderabad on August 9 to vent their ire on the exiled Bangladesh novelist and social commentator, Taslima Nasreen, represent the elements, who are bringing a bad name to Islam at a very inopportune time. What on earth are doing?

That a woman, a foreign guest, can be assaulted before an assembly of media persons and television cameras makes the event even more shocking, displaying as it does the MIM’s disregard for the law of the land Granted that some of the literary outpourings of Taslima Nasreen ended up grating the sensibilities of the practitioners of orthodox Islam, as has the work of another internationally known author from the sub-continent, Salman Rushdie. Anyone who offers their scalp can expect a bounty from the clergies who have issued fatwas for their head. But headhunting as a pastime does not exactly go very well in the present age. Besides, there is the question of allowing room for dissent, howsoever, distasteful it may be.

Dear citizens of my beloved Nation, are we going to deny asylum to someone who has courageously voiced her opinion through her prose and still stands by her view? What indication are we giving to everyone? I believe we should show more tolerance and compassion in this instance. Let there be respect of freedom of thought, expression, faith and belief.