On Taslima Nasreen

Does it matter? Is everybody supposed to have an opinion on the Taslima issue? Ideally it should not. But somehow I could not stop thinking. I felt the need that I have to have a stance on this issue. But I was confused. Unlike the majority of the blogger society or the news channel projected this to be a violation of artistic freedom, somehow I was never satisfied with the answer.
Another thing is that we should forget the political colors that has been surrounding the entire issue. As for that, there can not be any separate opinion that the political drama was of 3rd grade.

But let's come to the issue of writing something which may hurt the sentiments of certain people. Being an ardent fan of Jane Austen, I feel you need not take the shelter of hot and controversial topics to show off your literary talents. But whenever I think that, the much highlighted term of "Artistic Freedom" keeps poking me. I begin thinking about what would have happened if there were no artistic freedom? Would the world still have been flat? Would the sun still have rotated around the sun and could Archimedes have ever said Eureka? When I think along those lines, I take my view back. This dilema had been haunting me for almost a month now. But suddenly the week before last, I got my answer. And this time it was form Shobhaa Dey in Sunday Times of India 9th Dec.

The gist is this: Let's define the people. If a person is writing controversial thing, it got to have a purpose behind it. Simply writing controversies is a cheap tactics of money making. Noway better than yellow journalism. Let's say Taslima or Rushdie were not yellow journalists. Through their writings, they want to grab the world's attention to the atrocities they thing is a part of their religion with the hope that there will be some kind of action and world wide support which will help in abolishing this problems from the society.

The moment you think on those lines, you are no more an author. You are a human right activist or some rebel or some leader. Authoring becomes just a mean of expanding your net to attract more and more people towards the mission. So the bottomline is, when you write controversies, you should eventually atleast think that what you think will benefit the society and work towards it. Simply writing sensational stuff is a cheap act.

Now what did Taslima do? Agreed, she was in mortal danger in Bangladesh and had to run away. But why did she stop her protests? Why did we never see her in the streets of London/ Kolkata / wherever condemning what she found out in the religion. But I didn't see her fight. Shobhaa just confirms the fact (in case there is some error in my judgement). Taslima should not have been afraid of death. She should have taken her cause to the streets of Bengal. It would have been a test for the cultural capital of India also fr it's reaction to her cause.

Now it falls in line with Galileo/ Leonardo Da Vinci etc. These people were severely punished. But they took their cause to the streets. They believed that the current believes are wrong and people need to change.

I don't think Taslima is brave enough to face the brunt. She is not ready to take her cause to the level when people can actually be benefited. And this is why, I think she is wrong. If you dare, come what may you should go ahead.

Well on a side note, if it were me, I would have chosen the easier way, avoid controversy. NOt the other way round..