Let the Bangladeshi writer, Taslima Nasrin (picture from taslimanasrin.com), become an Indian citizen if that’s what she wants. Muslim fundamentalists in the country are demanding her expulsion, claiming she has "insulted" Islam. She faces death threats in Bangladesh for the same reason.
But India is a secular state where Hindus and Christians can mock their own religions without fear for their lives. The Marxists in power in the Indian state of West Bengal are officially atheists. So why shouldn’t Taslima be allowed to become an Indian simply because Muslim fundamentalists want her to leave the country?
Official decisions should not be guided by religious considerations in a secular state. Yet that’s what’s happening.
Taslima had to leave West Bengal after a Muslim fundamentalist agitation against her turned violent in the state capital, Calcutta (Kolkata), on Wednesay. Biman Bose, secretary of the ruling Marxist party in the state, suggested she should leave.
The Indian government headed by the Congress party in Delhi has shown more guts than the Marxists. It extended her visa recently. Taslima can stay in India till March next year. But she was turned down when she applied for Indian citizenship, reported Rediff News. Why?
Taslima should be granted Indian citizenship, says the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. I agree though I don’t support the Hindu nationalists on every issue.
There’s no reason to give in to Muslim fundamentalist demands anyway after yesterday’s bomb blasts. Bombs exploded almost simultaneously near or outside law courts in Lucknow, Varanasi and Faizabad, three cities in northern Uttar Pradesh state, killing at least 13 people, reported the BBC quoting the state government. The near-simultaneous blasts suggest careful planning and coordination, which can only be the work of a terrorist group.
The All-India Minority Forum, which agitated against Taslima in Calcutta on Wednesday, may have no links with the terrorists behind yesterday’s bomb blasts. But it was challenging the secular foundations of the Indian state by demanding Taslima’s expulsion on religious grounds just as the terrorists attacked the state by setting off bombs outside law courts. India should not tolerate that.
It was a "total capitulation" to communal forces that Taslima was forced to leave West Bengal, said the Hindu nationalists. For once, they were right.
The Marxists in West Bengal may have been trying to restore peace and order by suggesting Taslima leave the state after the riot in Calcutta. But that can only encourage the fundamentalists. Now they know they only have to start a riot to get what they want.
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