Thursday, March 20, 2008

Hate in the City of Joy

The most recent Taslima Nasreen incident has been well covered. From her exodus from Bangladesh to her entry into India to the harassment from the conservative Muslims and the Marxists and finally, exit to London.
The article detailing comments from Taslima is published in an article by Marcus Dam in The Chindu here,
http://www.hindu.com/2008/03/20/stories/2008032060180100.htm
The Chindu while printing her statement does a bit of 'smart' editing to her statement.
Her original statement reads,

“Even though they constantly pressured me mentally to leave the country, I refused to budge. I was determined I would not leave this country. When they saw it was pointless trying to destroy my mind, they attempted to destroy my body. In this they succeeded by ruining my health, which leaves me with no other alternative but to leave this country.
“I am forced to leave India. I used to call this the torture chamber. I gradually came to realise that it was the chamber of death instead.”

The smart editing is in 2 places,
they [the government] constantly pressured me

and
this [the undisclosed ‘safe location’ in New Delhi where she was put on November 23, 2007] the torture chamber.

The casual reader would assume that the Central Government was responsible for all this. But in fact the largest pressure came from the conservative Muslims in WB and feeling the pinch from their vote-bank, the CPM ministry. Where is the democracy where people have the right to practice their religion or have rights of free speech? Even if she's not a citizen, aren't guests equal to God in India (Athiti Devo Bhava)?

Once again Chindu decides to add its own spin to cover up the misgivings of the mandarins of Calcutta.
The silver lining lies in her quote,
She would address it and other seminars to speak of things “I have not been able to all these months in confinement.”

Hopefully that should clarify and fill in the missing pieces.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't be surprised if this thick skinned paper sheds tears over MF Hussain being forced to live in exile. I am really stunned at how cheap this paper can get in shamelessly defending the left lunatics.

socal said...

"conservative" muslims? Strange choice. Asaduddin Owaissi, muslim league MLA, said they could have killed Taslima. Not exactly conservative you see.

Unknown said...

There is nothing as "Conservative Muslims". This was coined just to shield them. Most appropriate would be "DORMANT"

Anonymous said...

You are doing a great job.Best Wishes.But why should the Left court trouble in Bengal?