May I ask what the reason behind such hatred was? Was it because I had written about Islam? Tell me, do you truly believe this is about Islam? The people who are crying foul about insults to Islam, who are burning my effigies, calling for my head, demanding my exile, do you really believe they are good and honest people? Do you think their demands are justified? If you don’t, then why do you not say anything? When Hindu fundamentalists make ridiculous demands, cause furore over the Ram-setu issue, you don’t like it. Unequivocally, you term this religious madness. In front of the Muslim fundamentalists, you had apparently called me a horrible woman and promised to have me leave the state. In beliefs, ethics and ideology, I had believed you would find me an equal, and yet you had sided with them, the people who wish to drag society back to the Dark Ages where women get tortured relentlessly, and where there is no place for the ideals of justice and equality.
What crime had I committed to deserve such punishment? In the journals run by your party or its allies, I was insulted in the worst ways over the years. Lies were written about me. I read all of it but I never reacted. Everywhere, people were protesting about Nandigram and Singur, about Rizwanur, but I was not able to say or write even a word about them. I had been told that since I was not a citizen of the country, I had no right to comment on its politics. Friends had warned me that you would unleash the worst consequences on me if I ever took to the streets, that you would drive me out of Bengal. It has never been in my nature not to stand up to injustice. And yet, I had stayed quiet, shamelessly, because staying in Bengal had been that important. If Bangladesh had not driven me out, had not sent me into exile, I would have lived there. I would never have sought shelter here. For eleven long years, I wandered from one European country to another, without being able to form an attachment with any place, or call another country my own. I was given a lot of respect in those countries, no conditions were placed on my freedom of speech, and no one told me to speak in measured tones because I had been given shelter. Yet, I wished to return to my country, to my parents, my family and my friends. During my years in exile, suffering from depression in Europe, I had turned to India for shelter after my cries for help had fallen on deaf years in Bangladesh. India had responded but it had taken them nearly six years to do so. The few days I was given in the meanwhile I would invariably spend in West Bengal, to revel in the taste of home. My relatives would even travel from the other side to meet me. I was allowed to live in India only three years ago and the moment the approval had arrived, I had moved to Bengal. Living in West Bengal for me had never simply been just about living as if in any other place.
For the three years I was in Kolkata, I never harmed a person. I spent most of my time at home, writing, or sometimes I would meet friends and chat. Unconcerned about others, unaware of politics, my quiet, unassuming life could not have been such an eyesore for someone, could it? My home in West Bengal had not been simply a home; it had been so much more for me. I was desperately trying to recreate my home in Bangladesh, the one I had already been exiled from. The dream had consumed me, but it had been impossible to find that in an alien culture and amidst an alien language. After an eleven-year-long search, I had found that home finally in West Bengal. I have never seen Bengal as two different nations, and so it had been quite easy for me to adopt Kolkata as my new city and West Bengal as my new country—a long-lost dream, a dream I had had to leave behind, and a sense of comfort and belonging after years of struggle. My mother had hoped to see me back home. My exile had caused her much heartache, and she had prayed I would be able to live with my family again. That had never happened though, and I was never able to return to Bangladesh. However, if she had been alive that day, she would have been glad to see me among Bengalis again—if not home, at least as close to it as possible.
My life in Kolkata was peaceful, and I was writing regularly. Suddenly, I was attacked by radicals in Hyderabad. While the general public expressed their sympathies for me, you, Mr Bhattacharya, did not even think to spare a glance. Whether I was beaten up or killed, it would have meant nothing to you. You never condemned the incident. No, I did not utter a single word about religion in Hyderabad and yet the barbaric incident happened. The fundamentalists had made it possible. After that, instead of support, your city allowed these men to declare, in broad daylight at Esplanade Crossing, a reward for my head. None of them were arrested or prosecuted. I am used to fatwas being declared on my head, my life has never walked the beaten track. I have had to live with numerous threats, fatwas, tortures and prohibitions. So, I was not afraid of this new fatwa either, and you had kindly arranged to have a security detail posted with me. The thought never crossed my mind that I might be attacked in Kolkata. So many times, I let go of my protectors and went out on my own, to Gariahat or to shop at Jadubabur Bazar, or to simply walk among the crowd. No one attacked me. Those who approached me did so out of love.
All of a sudden, I was told I could not go out. Why not? The guards had informed me that they had received missives from above, forbidding me from leaving the house—no markets, or long walks, not even friends’ houses. I was not allowed to go out even in secret, or with my security officials in tow. It had taken me a while to feel the shackles on my feet. For a while I had even assumed everything to be true, that there indeed was a plot to kill me. The day Prasun Mukherjee had come over and spent a couple of hours trying to convince me that I should not go out lest the radicals find me and pursue me to the house to kill me, that Kolkata and West Bengal were no longer safe for me and that I should leave immediately for Europe, America, Thailand or Singapore, or even Kerala or Madhya Pradesh, that there would be a riot if I didn’t—even that day I did not realize that the entire thing had been an elaborate set-up to frighten me into leaving West Bengal. My security had only been a ruse. Prasun Mukherjee had called quite often after that to ask me to leave, sometimes to threaten. The last call I received from him, he had freely admitted that the CM had instructed me to leave as soon as possible, that all arrangements had been made for me in Kerala, and that the Kerala governments would now give me security.
Trust me, Mr Bhattacharya, not for once did I even imagine that you had deployed Prasun Mukherjee to convince, threaten or frighten me into leaving the country, or at the very least West Bengal. I had asked to be allowed to tell people everything, that the Government of West Bengal was unable to give me security and was asking me to migrate to another state, lest there be further repercussions once I moved to Kerala. I had wanted everyone to know that I had not gone to die in Kerala of my own accord. Prasun Mukherjee, however, insisted that I leave secretly and tell no one. Not just him, you had asked some of your friends, people I had always respected, to ask me to leave too. I had been stubborn, perhaps I had been at fault—I had refused to leave. I refused, thinking you were genuinely concerned about my security and this was why I was being asked to leave. In a peaceful city, I had been clueless about what security issues might arise. And then, one fine day, the peace was broken. It was not meant to happen, but it had.
My punishment had been implemented in Kolkata already. I used to go mad while under house arrest, trust me! Did you ever imagine yourself in my place? If you had been kept locked up like that, how would it have been? How would you have felt if friends you wished would visit had kept away because they were wary of the policemen who stopped them to note down names and addresses for future reference? How would you have felt having to sit alone in a dark room, for months on end? Would you have felt suffocated? When one finds oneself locked in, without any strength or trick in the arsenal to unlock the door, there is a deathly silence that pervades everything, a mix of helplessness and misery. Tell me, Mr Bhattacharya, in those dark days, did you ever spare me a kind thought?
After Prasun Mukherjee, his responsibilities had been passed on to Mr Vineet Goel. He used to call often too but unlike Mr Mukherjee, he never suggested a bouquet of places for me to go to. From the very beginning, he had told me to go to Jaipur, where he had
assured me all arrangements would be made for my stay for two days, a resort would be booked and a cook specially hired for me. Why did I have to go? To save myself because Islamic radicals in Kolkata were planning my assassination! Under house arrest, and my captors were telling me I was free to make my own arrangements if I was not willing to listen to what the government had planned for me. I understood much later why Jaipur had been chosen, after Sundeep Bhutoria began calling me up. It was obvious the responsibility of ‘managing’ me had been passed over to him, and he had begun by trying to convince me to trust him that all arrangements would be taken care of in Jaipur. That everything was ready there for my reception, and I was to spend two quiet days there, away from everything, while things calmed down in Kolkata. Prasun Mukherjee had been unable to find someone I knew who could be used to convince me to leave. Vineet Goel had first dedicated himself to finding that very person before dealing with me. So, both Mr Goel and Mr Bhutoria had been quick to assure me that all arrangements for travel, stay and security in Jaipur had been taken care of. That I had committed a grave error having risked my life to stay in Kolkata, and that I would fly to Jaipur immediately if I had even the tiniest bit of common sense left in me.
On 15 November, the day of the bandh called by Siddiqullah Chowdhury and his ilk, the day the police had been wary of and for which they had been asking me to leave West Bengal, I was escorted hurriedly to another house early in the morning only to be left there alone by the police. Where had the officers gone? I called and got to know they had all gone back to the police headquarters! I had called Vineet Goel to ask when I should return home. He had been so angry with me because I had not escaped to Jaipur, because I had repeatedly turned away his messenger, and he could not even speak to me properly. That entire day I had spent in abject terror, thinking I would have been better off left alone at home where at least a dozen security guards had been posted for that day. The terror had taken root a couple of days before 15 November, on realizing that my security had been abruptly decreased. The reason that had been cited was that those men had been transferred to proper police stations. There was to be a traffic barricade in the afternoon, organized by Chowdhury’s Milli Ittehad Parishad (MIP), to protest against Nandigram, Singur, Rizwanur, the Sachar Committee Report, and me. I watched a group of protestors burning my effigy not too far from my house. Anxious that the fervour might reach me, I had called the undercover officers, who had been posted in front of my house since 9 August and were now sitting in the police station, for help. They had come, but only for a while. By the time they left, around fifteen minutes later, the effigy had not finished burning.
Nothing was supposed to have happened on the 21 November. And yet it had. I had underestimated Idris Ali and his front, especially since the other twelve had failed to create much stir. However, the scenes I witnessed on TV that day were astounding. I sat dumbfounded trying to make sense of the boys I saw, mad in their righteous rage, demanding I leave their city. Who were they? They were not the familiar faces from College Street I had expected in the protest! How could I have hurt their religious sentiments? Had they been brainwashed for a long time, or had they been deployed specifically for that day? I remember feeling suspicious about the whole thing being a set-up. The boys were lifting their lungis and flashing the policemen, making rude and obscene gestures, some were beating up cops, and I remember wondering whether they even knew me, whether they had read my books, whether they had even read the religious book they were meant to be champions of. Were they pelting the police with stones and setting cars on fire because someone had told them I was un-Islamic and had to be driven out of the state? Looking at their faces, their hatred for the police had shone through. Were their actions also motivated by a desire to avenge Rizwanur’s murder? At the same time, it did not seem Nandigram was one of the things they were protesting against. I remember feeling my blood freeze on seeing the police stand as silent witnesses to the carnage. They had been forbidden from shooting, and when the army was deployed, they too were given the same instructions. If the mob had marched to my house that day and murdered me, the police would still not have done anything. They had been asked not to, they had been asked to get hit but never to hit back.
Sundeep had come to me again that night. Of course, to say the same old thing: ‘You know I have made all the arrangements in Jaipur. The moment you land there, I’ve already had a word with the government, you will be provided with security. Go for a holiday. Eat, rest, do some sightseeing. Here, they might kill you any day. Why are you being so foolish?’ For the umpteenth time, I had firmly refused.
From early the next morning, the news channel Chabbis Ghanta (stylized to 24 Ghanta, i.e. twenty-four hours) had begun airing live updates of a gathering mob at the Park Circus seven-point crossing. People were shouting they would murder me, even at the cost of their own lives. The scenes were so horrific and barbaric! I spoke to Vineet Goel over the phone in the afternoon. He informed me that the attack would be set in motion after the Friday prayers the day after. When I had suggested that I move to someplace within the city—Salt Lake, Belgharia, Behala or even Golpark—for the day, he had firmly told me that I would have to do so on my own without any security. Security arrangements would only alert the mob, I had been told. Without security, of course, it would be impossible for me to stay. The implication had been clear—I had to agree to go to Jaipur to survive because there was no way I would be alive in Kolkata. They would come, the very next day, after their prayers, champions of faith, to kill me! That day, Vineet Goel had finally succeeded in his campaign of terror and fear, nearly four months in the making. Frightened, and with the desire to live and write driving me on, I had consented to fly to Jaipur for two days. In moments, a white Ambassador had been sent to drive me, with only my laptop in tow, to the airport. The police handed me tickets at the airport and that is how I had bidden farewell to Kolkata. Perhaps Stalin used to banish people to the Gulag in a similar way. Stalin used to banish those who were staunchly anti-Stalinist. Me, I had never been anti-Buddhadeb, Mr Bhattacharya!
It was only after reaching Jaipur that I had realized that everything Vineet Goel and his messenger from Jaipur had told me had been nothing but a pack of lies. The police there had been informed that I was going to attend an event. Consequently, I was put up in a seedy hotel which had apparently been booked by the eponymous messenger. Late in the night, I was informed by the local police that I had to leave Rajasthan immediately to avoid a potential law-and-order situation. Terrified again, I had immediately resolved to go back to Kolkata. However, early next morning I was taken from the hotel and driven, not to the airport or Kolkata, to Delhi. Again, I came to know later that the Government of Rajasthan had been trying to pull the same trick that the Government of West Bengal had already played with them—to foist me on the other without any prior news. West Bengal had obviously replied this time with a curt refusal to keep playing the game any longer. Alas, when I could not be dumped on any of the available courts, the only option had been to pack me off to Delhi. So the police had driven me out, a stateless, orphaned, helpless refugee, to some distant no man’s land, hoping to return to Kolkata someday. You had already informed the Centre that you were not responsible for me, had washed your hands of me, so to speak. The simple truth is that the decision had always been yours to take—and you had decided you wanted me out of West Bengal.
Rumour has it that you, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, had been afraid of losing the Muslim vote by keeping me in Kolkata. Everything had been done to secure that vote. I have always written against religious fanaticism. So, how could you not take my side that day? How could you condone the actions of those fundamentalists? You helped them win! Do you believe they love you? Are you certain that, like Frankenstein’s monster, they too will not demand your head one day?
I have left everything behind in Kolkata. My home, my work, my life—I feel disconnected from everything. I am not sure I know where I am. I am not sure how long I will h
ave to wait here for your approval so that I can go back home. The depression, uncertainty and restlessness are slowly driving me towards insanity. I can feel my blood pressure steadily rising, the anxiety goading me to commit suicide and end everything once and for all. Just so that you are happy, I have agreed to remove the lines which had most offended you in Dwikhandito. No, I did not agree to it because I am afraid of the fundamentalists. I agreed to it because I am more afraid of you, your secular democratic political parties, and the codes of conduct you have determined for those whom you grant asylum. I am afraid of how numerous intelligent individuals have shamelessly remained silent. I had to leave Bangladesh because there had been no freedom of speech and expression in my country; I had migrated to India hoping to find these here. If the world’s largest democracy cannot guarantee these rights to me, who else can? When I was asked to keep quiet, when I was asked to disavow my own writing, when I was forced to destroy my own book—was it me who was being demeaned? Or was it something else that lost face?
Mr Bhattacharya, I don’t believe your party will lose any votes on account of me. Your party is all-powerful, so I am certain it will come up trumps in any election. Despite that, if you are sure of earning a few extra votes because you have managed to drive me out of Bengal, then I wish you all the success with these gains. Perhaps after the election is over and you have won, you will let me return home? I will wait for your consent. I have never tried to harm you, and neither do I wish to do so in the future. All I wish is to be left to my own devices so that I can write as I please. I am not your adversary. It is the fundamentalists you have embraced as friends who are the true enemy here, they who wish to consume our world through their narrow-mindedness, superstitions and intolerance. I don’t believe you are not aware of this.
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