THE REAL SHAME

The death sentence  passed by Islamic fundamentalists against a Bangladeshi writer, Ms. Taslima Nasreen, at a public meeting in Sylhet is bound to revive memories of the still unimplemented fatwa against the more famous Salman Rushdie. But, while the latter can be accused of apostasy and deliberate provocation,  Ms. Nasreen’s sin has been only to depict the plight of a Hindu family in Bangladesh after the Ayodhya demolition. It is indeed a book which may appeal to those Muslims in India who had to live in terror during the same period. For the Bangladeshi fundamentalists, however, steeped in their customary intolerant world-view which has no place for communities other than those subscribing to their version of the Islamic faith, even an expression of sympathy for a non-Muslim family clearly amounts to an act of heresy. The reason perhaps is that such an attitude is really a condemnation of those Muslim bigots whose aggression spread panic among the minority communities in Bangladesh. But there is perhaps a deeper reason why the mullahs are so incensed. The book, Lajja (Shame), rises above the communal scene and underlines the durable cultural and emotional bonds that still tie the two halves of Bengal. It is this unity which survived partition and was partly strengthened after 1971 which the clerics apparently find it difficult to accept, for it tends to turn the focus away from the religious divide and deprive them of a handy excuse for exploiting naïve sentiments.

It will be wrong, however, to single out Bangladesh in this connection, for India, too, has attained notoriety in recent years for harbouring parties and groups which are no less virulent in their attitudes towards communities professing a different faith or cherishing a distinctive form of culture. Nor are they squeamish about uttering death threats, as Mr. Bal Thackeray’s recent directive against a Bombay journalist showed. What these developments emphasize is that fundamentalism has become a potent threat to social peace and communal harmony virtually all over the sub-continent, with the hapless minorities feeling both discriminated against and being the targets of frenzied groups at the slightest provocation. What is worse, as the fallout from the December 6 episode showed, incidents in one part of the sub- continent immediately fuel communal animosities in other parts, with the result that  ghettoisation  will soon become the only means by which the smaller communities may feel some amount of security at times of trouble. Lajja then, portrays not the fate of one family but of all minority groups—Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist or of any other faith. In a way, this is the real shame afflicting the sub-continent.

Editorial, The Times of India, 30 September 1993