Taslima, Gujrat, freedom, secularists… and shame

When the Islamist cowards were buring Kolkata from the bylanes last week, crying for the expulsion of Taslima Nasreen, with the hapless Leflist government unable to control them, I had suggested that Gujrat, the Indian state that stands for growth, freedom and liberty should voluntarily welcome her and offer her residence and protection. I had requested some of my friends in the BJP to take this suggestion to Narendra Modi, Gujrat CM.

With the news of central government lodging the Bengali writer in “undisclosed locations” and the shocking rumors of the government asking her to leave the country trickling in, Narendra Modi has welcomed her to Gujrat in a public meeting yesterday, in his first election meeting. I am only too happy to know this.

Kudos to him. Modi, you have made India proud. You have made us feel that we are indeed the land of the free and home of the brave.

"If the Centre lacks the courage to give security to her, then I have the courage. Send Taslima to Gujarat. The youngsters of Gujarat are keen to provide security to her."

"Bangladeshis are staying in lanes and bylanes of this country but no one is ready to evacuate them. Taslima, who is a writer exercising freedom of expression, is being harassed by fundamentalists."

.. She is a woman who is fighting for the truth. By giving her protection, the government should have set an example of the glorious tradition of India."

Well said, Narendra bhai. Taslima, the writer not only stands for staunch feminism, free thinking and her bold statements against Islamic fundamentalists in literary prose, but also for daring to expose the untold atrocities against Hindu minorities by the Muslim fundamentalists of Bangladesh, the fundamentalists in the government, politics and society. In that sense, she is also a brave champion of Hindu human rights.

The Leftists and the pseudo secularists of this nation stand exposed in their ugly nakedness, when they surrender the spirit of freedom and liberty to the bullying of law breaking Muslim mobs and rowdyism. What a shame! The shame is manifold than Taslima’s anguish in ‘Lajja’ when Niranjan’s family helplessly moves out of Bangladesh into India.

A hundred years ago, Sri Aurobindo wrote,

"The idea that by encouraging Mohmmedan rowdyism, the present agitation may be put down, is preposterous; and those who cherish this notion forget that the bully is neither the strongest nor the bravest of men; and that because the self-restraint of the Hindu, miscalled cowardice, has been a prominent feature of his national character, he is absolutely incapable of striking straight and striking hard when any sacred situation demands this."

(Aurobindo, september 4 1906, Bande Mataram)

Has anything changed? Same rowdyism. Same reaction from the spineless secularists.

What really has Taslima done to derive such anger from Muslims? She has not written anything offensive or insulting against that holy camel of Islamists, their Prophet or their holy Q Book. She has even spoken against stereotyping of Islamic scriptures as anti-women, calling for reinterpretation of Quran verses.

It was her courage to expose the institutionalized Islamic cruelty against Hindus in Bangladesh that earned her fatwas that demanded her head. This very expose was labeled as “anti-Islamic stand”. And the likes of her heart-rendering account of chilling acts of Islamic cruelty in “The Bangla Crescent” (A docu film by Mayank Jain) - “12 year old Gauri was raped in front of her mother, and then the mother was raped in front of Gauri, again and again..”

So, what are *Indian Muslims* protesting against her for?? That, she exposed the true face of an Islamic society and government in dealing with the minorities, in *Bangladesh*? And what are the political parties in India supporting these zealots' demands for?

Sitaram Yechury has accused BJP of “double standards” in the cases of Taslima and MF Husain. The nasuating debates about “freedom of expression” applied to both cases makes one puke. This, after Taslima herself quoting Husain’s safety and well being as a counter example against what is happening in her case!

Husain depicted the images of Hindu Gods and Goddesses in nude and sexually perverted ways that will quality as offensive in the eyes of any neutral observer. He justified this in the name of Artistic freedom (which, I think is subtly different from “freedom of speech” that relates to facts and realities of life, not just art)… and here too he was not honest, as he depicted Islamic women in a fully clothed and “dignified” manner. When questioned about this, he chose to mock at the criticism and refused to accept his hurting of Hindu sentiments.

But for one small scale attack on one of Husain’s studios, all that the Hindu activists (and numerous simple Hindu individuals, not connected to any groups) have done is to file cases against him in various courts in India. And the courts have admitted all these cases, as they are credible under various sections of Indian laws. In what better dignified manner can civilized people register their protest in a democratic nation?

But the “brave” Husain, anticipating long drawn legal battles where his “artistic freedom” will be scrutinized, does not want to return to India from UK. He makes long faces in public and laments about the “treatment” meted out to an Artist of his caliber in his homeland. And our secularist friends want Hindus to *withdraw* all the cases *voluntarily* so that the offending artist is spared from the legal proceedings, unconditionally. The never-hesitating-to-bow-to-Muslim-mobs secularist friends!

What an unbiased, neutral and impeccably honest secularist yardstick !

Now pray, tell me, who has “double standards” here? The Hindu activists or the secular brigade? Who should hang their heads in shame?