Taslima Nasreen touches down in Kolkata after 18 years, says happy to return

Exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen landed in Kolkata on Friday more than 18 years after she was forced to leave the city amid violent protests over her writings.Exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen greets people upon her arrival at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International (NSCBI) Airport, in Kolkata, West Bengal, on Friday (PTI)“I am feeling very happy. Thank you all,” Nasreen told reporters after landing at the NSCBI airport.The author, who has been living in Delhi on a long-term residence permit, is on a two-day visit to Kolkata for an event being organised by three organisations, Paschimbonger Jonno, Human Rights Beyond Frontiers and Secular Mission. Chief minister Suvendu Adhikari and West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Samik Bhattacharya are also expected to be at the event.“I can’t believe that I am in Kolkata now. I was driven out in 2007. Initially I had thought that I will be able to return. Kolkata is a progressive city. But as years passed, I had a feeling that I may never be able to return. But then Osman Gani Mallik of Secular Mission invited me to Kolkata. He made all the arrangements,” she said in an interview to a television channel.Nasreen was forced to leave Bangladesh in 1994 after she received death threats over her writings and the book Lajja (shame), which depicted atrocities faced by a Hindu family in Bangladesh in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition,The 63-year-old author moved to Europe and received a Swedish passport. She has been living in Delhi for more than a decade.Samik Bhattacharya, who had asked the government to allow Taslima Nasreen to return to Bengal in a speech in Parliament in 2025, said he was glad this was finally happening.“I said earlier that Taslima Nasreen should visit Bengal. It is finally happening because of the organisers. I plan to attend the event,” Bhattacharya said.Senior Communist Party of India (M) leader Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, who was the mayor of Kolkata in 2007, criticised Nasreen. “She is being brought to Kolkata not because of her books but because has been speaking for the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh all these years,” Bhattacharya said.In 2007, Muslim organisations accused her of insulting the religion in her autobiographical work, ‘Dwikhandito’. Riots erupted in the city and the army had to be deployed to restore peace. The then Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee-government in West Bengal asked her to leave Kolkata. Nasreen left the city on November 21, 2007.“I was left heartbroken. I couldn’t believe (that I have to leave Kolkata). I could still understand that the Bangladesh government exiled me. Actually, it was done by the fundamentalists who wanted to kill me and drive me out. But the fundamentalists alone couldn’t have driven me out. The Bangladesh government also wanted it. It was same with Kolkata. Had the government wanted I would have continued to stay in Kolkata,” she said.“I want to forget everything. I am happy that even though I am not being able to return to one Bengal (Bangladesh), I could return to the other Bengal (West Bengal),” she added.