Freedom curtailed, books banned for not wooing men

Woman means taking away woe of the man. She is meant to serve men and bear children and whenever think to move out of this tightly woven patriarchal structure, she will be shown the correct path through one or the other way. It is hard to see a woman raising head against men and religion discriminating against women and talking freely on the bodily integrity and freedom.

 Taslima Nasreen raised her voice against the conservative thoughts and hierarchical society where women are not allowed to think beyond a limit. Threatened to be beheaded for her writings by some fundamentalist groups and charged of blasphemy, she continued with her writings and stood firm on her belief. She wanted shariya (Islamic laws) to be abolished and it became the major controversy.

 A medical practitioner by profession ceased her medicine practice and became a full time writer and activist. All her great piece of writings like (Lajja, Amar mayebela, Utal Hawa,Dwikhondito, Sei sob ondhokar,ko) are banned. Readers are devoid of these beautiful pieces of works by Taslima Nasreen. Freedom of expression of a writer has been taken away for the false pride and ego of male dominated society and to woo some religious fundamentalists.

She has to live in exile and could not even attend the funeral of her parents. Her own chosen way of life to express her desires and thoughts became the cause of pain for life long. She couldn’t even breathe in free air who always wished to open her arms and spread her carelessly without caring for society or anybody. In her book Ko, she wrote about her sexual relationships that became indigestible to many. It became a matter of shame or question of ego for the society when a woman who is supposed to hide behind the veil in their society started writing about freedom and equality for women and thus trying to unveil the imposed burden of religion and culture.

How can a women voice be allowed to be raised to that level whose eco can even stir the deep-rooted patriarchy within society? This was not acceptable to the dominating sex and thus her writings were banned and even she was not spared to live freely in a liberal atmosphere. She remained hidden in undisclosed location for a long time, not allowed to attend public meetings; life became even more miserable than before. Her own country doesn’t want to listen her name, her own women (of Bangladesh ) whom she fought for, could not understand her words and got swayed with men who called her prostitute for writing about her sexual relationships. Sheikh Hasina the then prime minister of Bangladesh called Amar Mayebela (my girlhood) as pornography.

She fought against the male chauvinistic society for the equal rights of women and for that she is prohibited to enter her country. Her character was maligned and assassinated for speaking overtly for the cause of freedom and bodily integrity for women She is also lying somewhere in darkness aloof from the world affairs as her books got cut from its readers.

 

Disappearing tolerance seems dissenting liberal ideas

The ability to tolerate is an attitude that Indians claim to have inherited in their blood. This however seems to be disappearing. Books are banned, movies remain unscreened and writers are not allowed to speak in a public forum. Why so? The idea of liberal democracy seems to be hiding somewhere under the pressure of challenging lurid writings or works. Their thoughts and works have no space in our ‘liberal’ environment or democratic setup. Wendy Doniger’s book, ‘The Hindu: An Alternative History’ has been trashed by its publishers under pressure from right wing’s groups. A writer’s hard work, thought and reflection of her ideas has been put aside to appease to the fragile egos of certain groups of people.

 Shouting slogans of democracy and pretending to be liberal cannot be an alternative for a real champion of freedom. If people are not allowed to practice freedom in their thoughts and words then how can India become a pioneer of tolerance? There is a tug of war between different groups, parties and individuals where everyone is aspiring to be on the winning side. They all are in the race of exposing hypocrisy in which everyone is involved in one or the other.  How can a group be so powerful that it can influence the court or publisher for trashing one’s book? It is backed by a political party. Why no other political party then comes to take stand for the freedom of expression? Why does it remain a silent spectator of the entire drama? Parties try all means, even intimidation, to sway people at large on the name of religion.

 M.F Hussain spent his life till the last days in a foreign land after his painting was found to be offensive towards the Hindu religion. Salman Rushdie on various occasions was not allowed to speak on public platforms because that could have hurt the sentiment of a particular set of people. What kind of sentiments do we have that cannot be understood, writers’ perspectives that we allow to be trashed silently. A book cannot damage any tradition or cannot offend any religion by any means. It is the offence mongers who sale such ideas of intolerance for their due interest.

 These are a serious set of questions which need to be answered by the heroes of liberal democracy and those who claim to defend liberal values. This silence would be very dangerous for our own survival because silence doesn’t let us resist wrong happenings. Decency is required rather than dissenting on a piece of work or art. We have somewhere constrained our mind and soul to question those in power and thus let injustice happen.