People's Democracy

 Why Did Bengal Govt Ban Taslima Nasreen’s Book?

THE Bengal Left Front government has decided to ban Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen’s latest book, Dwikhandita (‘Split in Two’) because it was feared that the book would incite communal violence.  At no point of time has the book been proscribed on political or literary grounds.

In a government notification issued on November 28, the state LF government has formally invoked the ban under section 95 of the code of Criminal Procedure, read with Act 153 of the Indian Penal Code (where it is considered a criminal and punishable act to create enmity, rivalry, and hatred amongst religious communities.

State secretary of the CPI (M), Anil Biswas said that there was apprehension expressed widely that the book would spark off communal tension, and that very many experts in the field supported this view. The LF government has banned the book for the sake of the upkeep of democracy in Bengal. Several newspapers, too, have expressed similar feelings. Biswas pointed out that “from the time the Left Front has been office in Bengal not a single book or publication has been proscribed on political grounds.” However, said Biswas, it was a different matter altogether if a publication or a book incited terrorism and communalism. 

Chief minister of Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee whose department issued the notification banning the book, said that he had himself read the book “several times over.” that he has “persuaded at least 25 noted specialists to go through the book critically” and that they have recommended the book to be not fit for circulation among the reading public.  In particular, the pages 49-50 of the book contain very derogatory and provocative references that go against the grain of the tenets of Islam and of Islamic beliefs.

Several noted authors including the poet Sunil Gangopadhyay, the novelists, Dibyendu Palit, Nabanita Deb Sen, and Syed Mustafa Siraj, the Bangladeshi novelist, Sams-ul Huq, the singer Suman Chatterjee, as well as the Trinamul Congress leader and Kolkata mayor, Subrata Mukherjee, among others, have come openly out against the book and have supported the decision by the state LF government to get the book banned. 

Pradesh Congress leader Somen Mitra who has called Taslima Nasreen a blot on the world of women, has described the book as having no difference with a piece of pornography and has said that nobody ought to assume rights to hurt the sentiments of a religious community.

The book which forms a part of Nasreen’s multi-volume autobiography has been charged by the reading public of Kolkata and Bengal with obscenity and has come under fire for its maligning and falsified personal references to the lives of several noted scholars of Bengal and Bangladesh as well. 

However, the book, as Anil Biswas made clear while speaking to the media in Kolkata recently, was banned because of the fact that portions of the book would cause religious disharmony to break out, with the religious fundamentalists utilising the book to fan the flame of communal fire.

True to form, the BJP chief Tathagata Roy has supported Taslima Nasreen’s derogatory references to Islam and has opposed the proscription of the book.  Mamata Banerjee has chosen to hold her silence, as she is wont to do of late on very many other matters as well.