The printed programme had a single word, 'exile', but even those very familiar with Nasreen's oeuvre would be forgiven for associating it with the name of her latest book and a discussion on it. Then the session, which was listed for 3.45pm, was preponed to 1pm, without notifying anyone.
It was a covert operation that an army general would have been proud of – the secrecy with which the Taslima Nasreen session was pulled off on the final day of Zee Jaipur Literature Festival (ZeeJLF) on Monday.
The printed programme had a single word, 'exile', but even those very familiar with Nasreen's oeuvre would be forgiven for associating it with the name of her latest book and a discussion on it. Then the session, which was listed for 3.45pm, was preponed to 1pm, without notifying anyone.
The objective, given how both ZeeJLF and the Bangladeshi writer living in exile in India tend to be controversy magnets, was clearly to give the rabble-rousers little time to wreak mischief. They succeeded, in part. The session went off well, without disruptions. But the protestors were not to be denied. They mounted a delegation to Diggi Palace, were shepherded into a nearby hotel by the teeming police at the venue, and Sanjoy K Roy, Festival producer, went out to speak to them.
Speaking to TV cameras, Muhammad Sajid of Azmat e Namus e Rasool, a Muslim organisation, and Qari Moinuddin, Convenor of the Rajasthan Muslim forum (both had also been at the forefront of the protests against Salman Rushdie coming to Jaipur in 2012) said, "The ZeeJLF has invited many eminent people from all over the world to Jaipur and we have no issue with that. But we will not allow Taslima Nasreen, who has been writing against the Quran in her books, to attend this. The organisers have assured us that they will not henceforth invite Rushdie or Nasreen."
Speaking to DNA, Roy said, "I heard them out and explained that we supported minorities in every way." He also underscored that ZeeJLF was a platform that upholds all points of view and agreed to consider the request not to re-invite Nasreen.
Thankfully, Nasreen, dressed in a black Dhakai jamdani sari and dark glasses on stage, didn't pull her punches. "Because I write about women and women's rights, I have to criticise religions that oppress women. It is necessary for Islamic society to be tolerant and accept this. Uniform civil code is urgently needed for women's rights," she said.
She spoke of her 24 years of exile from her native Bangladesh, about how she wanted to stay in India because she felt at home here, and because Bangla, her mother tongue, was an Indian language too. In conversation with Salil Tripathi, who heads the Writers-in-Prison committee of Pen International, an organisation of writers which works to uphold freedom of expression worldwide, she spoke about how only education could stem the intolerance that led to the killing of writers in Bangladesh and India, about how without freedom of expression there could be no true democracy, and that she believed in one world.
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