Affront to India's pluralist culture

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Special Correspondent, The Hindu - 23rd November 2007

CHENNAI: UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Madanjeet Singh has expressed shock at the Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen being compelled to leave West Bengal because of her secular views.

In a statement on Friday, Mr. Singh, who is also the founder of the South Asia Foundation, said the decision to “expel her” from West Bengal was an affront to India’s pluralist, secular culture and traditional multiculturalism.

He said: “I am shocked and ashamed as an Indian to learn that the Bengali poet and writer, Taslima Nasreen, the living embodiment of secular culture, has been compelled to move out of West Bengal, first to Jaipur and then to Delhi, because of her secular views.”

“Taslima was awarded the 2004 UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance and Non-Violence by UNESCO Director-General Koichiro Matsuura on behalf of an international jury. Her acceptance speech highlighting secularism, received a long and standing ovation in Paris. The prize was established in 1995, marking Mahatma Gandhi’s 125th birth anniversary.

“The manner in which she has been treated by the Islamic fundamentalists in India is shocking; a fanatic Muslim even offered to pay Rs. 5,00,000/- to anyone who would cut her throat, and the secular government of India took no action against this criminal for publicly calling for her murder.

Second home

“The decision of the CPI(M)-led Left Front Government to expel Taslima from West Bengal [which she calls her second home] is an affront to India’s pluralist, secular culture and traditional multiculturalism. It is all the more shocking if it is true that the decision was taken in consultation with the Central Government, which also claims to be secular.

“I earnestly appeal to the concerned authorities that they abide by India’s ancient tradition of giving shelter to people in distress, as was done in the case of the Dalai Lama. In the Sibi Jataka, painted in the 2nd-5th century painting at Ajanta Caves, the king of the Sibis offered an equal weight of his own flesh to a hawk which claimed a dove as its prey.”