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