Whatever life I might have lived, howsoever wretched or sordid, I can at least attest to the fact that I have not been unfaithful to myself. Even if my readers feel repulsed by me, I would take comfort in the fact that I have not cheated them either, that I have not fed them a pack of pretty lies in the guise of my life’s story. I have told them the truth even when that truth has been unpalatable, knowing fully well that I can neither alter nor deny whatever has happened in my life—I can acknowledge the unpleasant as much as I can appreciate the beautiful.
The attack and the insults that I have faced from all quarters stem from one simple fact—I have spoken the truth. Not many can handle the truth. While the truth of Aamar Meyebela or Utol Hawa was easy to accept, the truth in Dwikhandito has been simply too much for most people. So, the people who made suitably remorseful noises of pity when reading about the insults I was subjected to in Aamar Meyebela, who sympathized with me after I was betrayed by my husband in Utol Hawa, the same people took to shaming me after reading about my affairs with multiple men in Dwikhandito. This can, of course, mean only one thing. As long as a woman is oppressed and helpless, as long as she is weak and in despair, one can take pity on her or even like her. However, the moment she realizes that she is no longer weak, the day she grows a spine and demands that her voice be heard, the instant she breaks nonsensical taboos to claim responsibility of her own mind and body, she becomes an outcast and an object of loathing. I have always been aware of this duplicitous nature of society, and yet I have never been afraid to be myself.
One of the most important reasons behind the controversy over Dwikhandito is the notion of sexual independence. Since most people in society are firmly rooted in patriarchy, they cannot come to terms with a woman’s declaration of her right to her own body and sexuality. The sexual independence I have staked my claim to is not simply at the level of discourse; it is something I have practised in my life. That does not imply in any way whatsoever that I will be accessible to any and every man who might desire me. Our society is not yet equipped to either acknowledge a woman’s sexual rights or to understand that a woman can be sexually chaste and yet be intimate with any man she desires.
Prominent male authors were having a field day calling me a whore, all the while reaffirming how deeply implicated they were within this self-serving patriarchal set-up. They can shamelessly exploit a prostitute for sex and still use the word as a slur whenever it suits them. The use of women as sex slaves is yet another fact of centuries of oppression. In Dwikhandito I have written about my fight against patriarchy and the oppression of women and religious minorities. Yet, the only thing everyone seems to be talking about is my sexuality. They haven’t noticed my pain, my tears—the only thing they have noticed is the number of men I have been with, and my audacity in having spoken about something as dark, hideous and primal as sex. In the history of the world, whenever a woman has dared to stand up to patriarchy, whenever she has tried to stake a claim to her own freedom, she has been labelled a whore. Years back, in the introduction to the book Noshto Meyer Noshto Godyo (Profane Writings of a Fallen Woman), I had written: ‘I adore the mantle of the fallen woman that has been ascribed to me by society. It is an undeniable truth that when a woman wishes to rise above her conditions, when she stands up against the repressive forces of society, State or religion, when she becomes aware of her rights and rebels against the forces seeking to push her back, civilized society invariably shuns her as fallen. The first condition of a woman’s emancipation is that she must transgress, without which it will be impossible for her to extricate herself from the grasp of social conventions. The truly emancipated woman is one who everyone rebukes as fallen.’ I believe in this adage to this day that a woman must be willing to ‘fall’, defying social conventions, if she truly desires to win her independence. It is no small reward for a woman to be called a whore by our slowly decaying society. Till date, of all the awards that I have won, it is this epithet, that of the ‘whore’ or the ‘prostitute’ that I cherish the most. I have earned this award because I have truly been successful in delivering a crippling blow to the filthy body of patriarchal power. This is the true measure of success of my lifelong battle, my career as a writer, and my journey as a woman.
Two writers, one from Bangladesh and another from India, filed cases against me because of the book. They did not just desire compensation; they wished to have the book banned. I have never managed to understand why a writer would call for the prohibition of a fellow writer’s work. How do these people, the guardians of free speech and free thought, behave like fundamentalists? There has been so much fiction, so many lies that have been written about me but I have never run to the courts demanding something be banned. Like Evelyn Beatrice Hall, I have always maintained: ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’ Why do our celebrated writers keep trying to disavow this cardinal truth regarding the freedom of speech?
So many writers the world over have left written accounts of their lives. These accounts are never simply a patchwork of the most favourable aspects of their life, but are candid appraisals of human foibles, their mistakes, indiscretions and sins. Human life, regardless of the greatness of the individual, is incomplete without the occasional moments of darkness. St Augustine’s (354–430) frank accounts of his antisocial and dissolute lifestyle in Algeria in the seminal Confessions—with his admission of sexual excesses, licentiousness, and even becoming the father of an illegitimate child—are never burdened by the need to conceal and excise. Even Mahatma Gandhi was known to have slept with women in his bed in order to test the limits of his vow of abstinence. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78), in his autobiographical writings—also titled Confessions—has been startlingly frank about his misdeeds despite being fully aware that very few of his contemporaries had the acumen to appreciate his needs for complete honesty. The results are frank confessions of his sexual pursuit of a number of women, including Mademoiselle de Warens, whom he was known to have considered a maternal figure. Benjamin Franklin’s (1709–90) autobiography is replete with anecdotes of his wild, misspent youth, and goes on to recount how he had adopted his illegitimate son William into the family. Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) in his autobiography has confessed to his many illicit love affairs with a number of women, including Lady Ottoline Morrell and Vivienne Eliot, the first wife of the iconic British poet T.S. Eliot. Leo Tolstoy’s memoirs are marked by his unabashed admissions of visiting brothels at the age of fourteen, his sexual affairs with lower-class and married women, and his battles with venereal disease.
One can always wonder why these people felt compelled to reveal to the readers such stories that society might not be willing to condone. They did so simply because they did not wish to hide their true selves by denying events that were so significant to their lives. Have they been attacked because of such a stance? On the contrary, they have been applauded for their efforts, for having had the courage to reveal the truth. In the West, the relationship between a man and a woman has long since come out of the closet. Many writers have begun to frankly explore their lives and relationships through literature, like Catherine Millet in her book La Vie Sexuelle de Catherine M. (The Sexual Life of Catherine M. [2001]) which is a thrilling tale of her sexual exploits with numerous men during the age of free love in the swinging sixties. The fact that the book is full of stunning descriptions of intercourse has in no way affected its standing as literature. In Living to Tell the Tale (2002), the first volume of his autobiography, Gabriel García Márquez has left no tale of his sexual affairs with various women untold. Does that mean they will call Márquez names for his lifestyle and move the courts to demand that his book be banned?
Biographies of famous personalities have been published in every civilized country in the world—produced through years of diligent research into private archives. For instance, uncomfortable questions regarding Tagore himself have begun to be asked, especially about his marrying off his young dau
ghter despite being such a vocal advocate against child marriage. One can always ask if the readers need to know these previously unknown pieces of information at all. The simplest rejoinder would be to remind oneself that if these were indeed spurious information, then writers from the world over would not go through months and years of back-breaking research before embarking on narrating the story of someone’s life. Through the discovery of previously unknown incidents, the life of a renowned personality and their work too can be studied vis-à-vis a fresh perspective that had hitherto been unavailable.
The average Bengali male writer has never shied away from playing sexual games with numerous women, albeit in secret. In real life, though they might conveniently excise these stories from their memoirs, they are perfectly willing to let these characters populate the fiction they write. No one, however, questions this duplicity. All questions arise when a woman dares to write about sexuality, be it in fiction or otherwise. Sexuality, in such a milieu, is the fiefdom of the male author and woe befall any woman who dares encroach upon it. As a woman, I must be demure and guarded. I must not dare to write like a man because they have the exclusive rights to a woman’s body, her breasts, her arse, her vagina—be it in literature or in real life. Women do not possess these rights because patriarchy has not deemed her fit to possess them. The source of all the unrest lies in the fact that I have not cared about these restrictions, and written about things which I was not allowed to write about, irrespective of how tragic or heart-rending my story actually is.
Men have always taken pride in the number of women they have been with. This is entirely different for women, however, especially if they wish to write frankly about love and sex. It earns them epithets like traitor and whore. I have spoken the unspeakable in my recollections, transgressed boundaries and uttered obscenities, revealed intimate compromises made behind closed doors, inconsequential and irrelevant things. But I have never believed that these events have been inconsequential! In fact, these incidents have been foundational in the making of the woman I am today, my beliefs, my ideologies. They reveal how I have grown, bit by bit, constructed by constant clashes with society at large, a real woman who is anything but an archetype. I believe, at least in order to understand myself, this self-explanation is critical.
It has been pointed out that though I was perfectly within my rights to harm my own reputation, I had no right to toy with someone else’s. Some have even alleged that I have tried to socially or personally defame them despite the fact that the book is my autobiography and not someone else’s. There is one thing that I simply do not understand: why do people who are so sensitive regarding their reputation do things that they know will harm it? Have I broken someone’s trust? I do not remember ever making promises that I will never speak about these incidents to anyone! Apparently, there are unspoken contracts! The fact of the matter remains that the men who were accusing me of breach of personal contract were the ones who were anxious about their quasi-divine reputations being irrevocably tarnished if their dirty secrets were to tumble out. And so they raged, their eyes as red as blood, threatening brutal punishment for my transgressions!
What if I truly believe that these incidents should be revealed? Who decides between what should be done and what shouldn’t? What if I don’t believe that what I have said is obscene? Who draws the lines and who takes the call on what is obscene and what is not? Only I alone have the final say in what I wish to include in my autobiography and not any random person who has arbitrarily assumed the guardianship of good taste! Critics have described my independence as hedonism. The fact remains that our definitions of ideas of taste, sin and beauty have traditionally been formulated according to the pedagogy of patriarchy. Consequently, a woman’s demure nature, chastity, beauty, resilience, fidelity and assorted qualities have come to be codified as the essential features of the ideal feminine. Thus carefully structured, our consciousness remains in perennial fear of facing harsh, unforeseen truths. It makes us cover our ears and tremble in disgust, symptoms visible among many critics these days. They have asked if I can be called a writer at all, and have even wondered whether my autobiography is worth being serialized and published. Truly everyone, including the smug journalist who believed that a pen in my hand was a bad omen, has the right to recollect their life’s journey. Even if I have been utterly irresponsible and unreasonable, as has been alleged, the right is still irrevocably mine to exercise. George Bernard Shaw had noted: ‘A reasonable man adapts himself to the world. An unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends upon the unreasonable man.’ I, Taslima, have always been of the unreasonable kind. I am too simple a writer to claim that the progress of the world is dependent on me in any way whatsoever. However, to the erudite and the cultured, I would gladly be unreasonable or stupid. It is this stupidity that has forever assisted me in standing firm even under the crushing blows of patriarchal retribution; my stupidity and irrationality have been my most prized possessions.
The other accusation has been that I have deliberately hurt religious sentiments. Those who know me are aware of how vocal I have always been against religious tyranny. Since organized religion is almost entirely patriarchal, the agents of patriarchy would obviously not take kindly to insults against their religious texts and ideologues. These custodians have driven me out of my country, yet another price that I have had to pay for speaking the truth.
This was not the first time that fear and paranoia regarding a communal riot had been carefully channelled to prohibit my writing—it had happened before in Bangladesh. The repeated incidents of communal violence that have come to define the political atmosphere of the Indian subcontinent are, however, not caused by my writings. They are caused by systematic oppression of Hindu and other minorities in Bangladesh, the persecution of Muslim minorities in Gujarat, repeated incidents of violence on Biharis and Christians in Assam, clashes between the Shia and the Sunni in Pakistan, and countless other such incidents. I may not be an author of great consequence, but whatever I have written thus far has been in the service of humanity, to foreground that everyone, irrespective of faith, race, gender, has an equal right to live with dignity. No, my writings have never caused riots; whatever catastrophe they have caused has been limited only to my life. I remain the only person who suffers the consequence, the only person whose life is thrown into turmoil, and the only person who has to lose her home.
The Bengali daily Anandabazar Patrika stood firmly by my side against the wave of slander and criticism that had ensued, bringing out a special issue of their journal Desh with contributions by a number of figures, including me and Shibnarayan Ray.18 Their editorial, especially, was fantastic, and one cannot help but recall it:
In those days, the city at midnight used to be ruled by four young men—it was a time of poetry and a realm of imagination. However, times have changed. Now about a dozen intellectuals, in broad daylight and in their complete prosaic senses, lord over Kolkata and the rest of Bengal. This is Buddhadeb Bhattacharya’s Bengal where the esteemed Chief Minister, playwright, translator, cultured and a patron of the arts, has ruled in favour of banning the third volume of Taslima Nasrin’s autobiography Dwikhandito. Why has the book been banned? The official reason cited is that it might incite communal tensions. In the meanwhile, a few thousand copies have already been sold, and like her earlier writings, there have been tense arguments, heated debates and even legal suits. Despite this, there have been no reported instances of communal unrest yet. This, perhaps, is the biggest symbol of social evolution that one could have expected. It begs the question as to why the socially evolved Left Front Government of West Bengal, which has always prided itself in being a champion for democracy, went so far as to order a ban. The Chief Minister has stated that he chose about twenty-five eminent people whom he asked to read the book before ruling in favour of the ban. This would imply that the three-decade-old Left Front Government took the entire decision based upon the opini
ons of a handful of intellectuals, opinions that have resulted in restrictions on an author’s right to express her opinions freely. During the high noon of colonialism the imperial powers would often resort to banning books they deemed dangerous; the difference lies in the fact that they would also take full responsibility for their actions. Similarly, during the Emergency, Indira Gandhi or Siddhartha Shankar Ray19 never had to resort to using the intelligentsia as a shield for their repressive measures. The progressive Left Front Government of West Bengal has indeed established a new model in this regard; a model that clearly spells out that the State will issue directives but not take the ensuing responsibility. Not that the State has to take responsibility at all, especially if it has such a ready supply of renowned intellectuals who would stay up late into the night to read Taslima Nasrin’s autobiography at the Chief Minister’s behest and give such informed opinions! Why should the powers that be give up such a golden opportunity of being able to use the cultural elite to rule culture and taste itself, and still protect their reputation of being evolved and liberal?
Have the Chief Minister and his cohorts considered what their joint efforts have done to the state of democracy in West Bengal? The entire world is now aware of the Stalinist regime that is in power, where the State can quash dissenting voices at will and create support for its actions by the help of a certain section of the cultural elite. If this is not an instance of cultural fascism, then would the esteemed Chief Minister be gracious enough to explain to us what is? Perhaps, there are other deeper reasons behind this virulent opposition of Taslima Nasrin’s book. Possibly it has been too dangerous to allow someone to talk whose revelations about her own life threaten to expose hitherto unknown secrets about someone else’s. Otherwise, what can justify a reason as preposterous as stating that the book has been banned because twenty-five people have said so!
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