Bangladeshi poet, columnist, novelist
Taslima Nasrin | |
|---|---|
Nasrin in 2019 | |
| Born | (1962-08-25) 25 August 1962 (age 62) Mymensingh, East Pakistan |
| Education | Mymensingh Medical College[1] |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1973–present |
| Movement | Women's Equality, Human Rights, Freedom of Speech, Atheist, Scientism, Tolerance |
| Spouses |
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| Website | taslimanasrin.com |
Taslima Nasrin[a] (born 25 August 1962) is a Bangladeshi essayist, physician, feminist, secular humanist, and activist. She is known round out her writing on women's oppression and criticism of religion; a selection of of her books are banned in Bangladesh.[2][3][4] She has further been blacklisted and banished from the Bengal region, both let alone Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal.[5][6]
She gained wideranging attention by the beginning of 1990s owing to her essays and novels with feminist views and criticism of what she characterizes as all "misogynistic" religions.[7][8] Nasrin has been living stuff exile since 1994, with multiple fatwas calling for her death.[9] After living more than a decade in Europe and rendering United States, she moved to India in 2004 and has been staying there on a resident permit long-term, multiple-entry correspond to 'X' visa since.[10][11]
Nasrin is the daughter depart Dr. Rajab Ali and Edul Ara, Bengali Muslims of Mymensingh. Her father was a physician, and a professor of Examination Jurisprudence in Mymensingh Medical College, also at Sir Salimullah Scrutiny College, Dhaka and Dhaka Medical College. After high school barge in 1976 (SSC) and higher secondary studies in college (HSC) populate 1978, she studied medicine at the Mymensingh Medical College, mar affiliated medical college of the University of Dhaka and gradatory in 1984 with an MBBS degree.[12]
In college, she wrote last edited a poetry journal called Shenjuti.[13] After graduation, she worked at a family planning clinic in Mymensingh, then practised sort the gynaecology department of Mitford hospital and at the anaesthesia department of Dhaka Medical College hospital. While she studied post practised medicine, she saw girls who had been raped; she also heard women cry out in despair in the delivering room if their baby was a girl.[14] Born into a Muslim family, she became an atheist over time.[15] In representation course of writing she took a feminist approach.[16]
Early fluky her literary career, Nasrin wrote mainly poetry, and published division a dozen collections of poetry between 1982 and 1993, frequently with female oppression as a theme, and often containing publication graphic language.[14] She started publishing prose in the late Decennium, and produced three collections of essays and four novels once the publication of her documentary novel Lajja (Bengali: লজ্জা, romanized: Lôjja, lit. 'Shame') in which a Hindu family was being attacked hard Muslim fanatics and decided to leave the country. Nasrin suffered a number of physical and other attacks for her faultfinding scrutiny of Islam and her demand for women's equality. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets demanding move together execution by hanging. In October 1993, a radical fundamentalist lesson called the Council of Islamic Soldiers offered a bounty funds her death.[14][17]
In May 1994, she was interviewed by the Calcutta edition of The Statesman, which quoted her as calling miserly a revision of the Quran; she claims she only cryed for abolition of the Sharia, the Islamicreligious law.[18] In Venerable 1994 she was brought up on "charges of making rabid statements," and faced criticism from Islamic fundamentalists. A few century thousand demonstrators called her "an apostate appointed by imperial gather to vilify Islam"; a member of a "militant faction threatened to set loose thousands of poisonous snakes in the money unless she was executed."[19] After spending two months in flogging, at the end of 1994 she escaped to Sweden, so ceasing her medical practice and becoming a full-time writer playing field activist.[20]
After fleeing Bangladesh in 1994, Nasrin spent say publicly next ten years in exile in Sweden, Germany, France give orders to the US. She returned to the East and relocated know about Kolkata, India, in 2004, where she lived until 2007. Afterwards she was physically attacked by fanatics in Hyderabad, she was forced to live under house arrest in Kolkata, and at long last, she was made to leave West Bengal on 22 Nov 2007. She then lived under house arrest in New City for three months. She left India in 2008 but late returned there from the United States.[citation needed]
Leaving Bangladesh towards say publicly end of 1994, Nasrin lived in exile in Western Collection and North America for ten years. Her Bangladeshi passport challenging been revoked; she was granted citizenship by the Swedish create and took refuge in Germany.[21] She allegedly had to console for six years (1994–1999) to get a visa to stop in India. In 1998, she wrote Meyebela, My Bengali Girlhood, absorption biographical account from birth to adolescence. She never got a Bangladeshi passport to return to the country to visit connection parents, now both deceased.[21]
See also: 2007 Calcutta riots
In 2004, she was granted a renewable temporary residential warrant by India and moved to Kolkata in the state cancel out West Bengal, which shares a common heritage and language consider Bangladesh; in an interview in 2007, after she had archaic forced to flee, she called Kolkata her home.[22] The administration of India extended her visa to stay in the power on a periodic basis, though it refused to grant relax Indian citizenship. While living in Kolkata, Nasrin regularly contributed agree to Indian newspapers and magazines, including Anandabazar Patrika and Desh, dispatch, for some time, wrote a weekly column in the Asiatic version of The Statesman.
Again her criticism of Islam was met with opposition from religious fundamentalists: in June 2006, Syed Noorur Rehaman Barkati, the imam of Kolkata's Tipu Sultan Musjid, admitted offering money to anyone who "blackened [that is, pronounce humiliated] Ms Nasreen's face."[23][24][25] Even abroad controversy followed: on say publicly US Independence Day weekend in 2005, she criticized US tramontane policy and tried to read her poem titled "America" succeed to a large Bengali crowd at the North American Bengali Seminar at Madison Square Garden in New York City, but was booed off the stage.[26] Back in India, the "All Bharat Muslim Personal Board (Jadeed)" offered 500,000 rupees for her execution in March 2007. The group's president, Tauqeer Raza Khan, aforesaid the only way the bounty would be lifted was take as read Nasrin "apologises, burns her books and leaves."[27]
In 2007, elected standing serving members of All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen made threats dispute Taslima Nasreen,[28] pledging that the fatwa against her and Salman Rushdie were to be abided by.[29] While she was bargain Hyderabad releasing Telugu translations of her work, she was attacked by party members led by 3 MLAs- Mohammed Muqtada Caravanserai, Mohammed Moazzam Khan and Syed Ahmed Pasha Quadri - were then charged and arrested.[30][31][32][33]
On 9 August 2007, Nasrin was in Hyderabad to present the Telugu translation of give someone a buzz of her novels, Shodh, when she was allegedly attacked disrespect a mob, led by legislators from the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, fraudster Indian political party.[34][35] A week later, on 17 August, Monotheism leaders in Kolkata revived an old fatwa against her, goading her to leave the country and offering an unlimited quantity of money to anybody who would kill her.[36] On 21 November, Kolkata witnessed a protest against Nasrin. A protest union by the "All India Minority Forum" caused chaos in interpretation city and forced the army's deployment to restore order.[37] Funding the riots, Nasrin was forced to move from Kolkata, need "adopted city,"[38] to Jaipur, and to New Delhi the people day.[39][40][failed verification][failed verification][41]
The government of India kept Nasrin in plug undisclosed location in New Delhi, effectively under house arrest, all for more than seven months.[42] In January 2008, she was chosen for the Simone de Beauvoir award in recognition of companion writing on women's rights,[43] but declined to go to Town to receive the award.[44] She explained that "I don't desire to leave India at this stage and would rather presume for my freedom here,"[45] but she had to be hospitalised for three days with several complaints.[46] The house arrest hasten acquired an international dimension: in a letter to the London-based human rights organisation Amnesty International, India's former foreign secretary Muchkund Dubey urged the organisation to pressure the Indian government tolerable Nasrin could safely return to Kolkata.[47]
From New Delhi, Nasrin commented: "I'm writing a lot, but not about Islam, It's party my subject now. This is about politics. In the grasp three months I have been put under severe pressure foresee leave [West] Bengal by the police." In an email press conference from the undisclosed safehouse, Nasrin talked about the stress caused by "this unendurable loneliness, this uncertainty and this deathly silence." She cancelled the publication of the sixth part of torment autobiography Nei Kichu Nei ("No Entity"), and — under strength — deleted some passages from Dwikhandito, the controversial book dump was the boost for the riots in Kolkata.[49] She was forced to leave India on 19 March 2008.
Nasrin enraptured to Sweden in 2008 and later worked as a investigating scholar at New York University.[50] Since, as she claims, "her soul lived in India," she also pledged her body dealings the country, by awarding it for posthumous medical use inclination Gana Darpan, a Kolkata-based NGO, in 2005.[51] She eventually returned to India, but was forced to stay in New City as the West Bengal government refused to permit her entry.[citation needed] Currently her visa received a one-year extension in 2016 and Nasreen is also seeking permanent residency in India but no decision has been taken on it by the Bring in Ministry.[52]
In 2015 Nasrin was threatened with death by Al Qaeda-linked extremists, and so the Center for Inquiry assisted her just the thing travelling to the United States, where she now lives.[53] Depiction Center for Inquiry (CFI) that helped evacuate her to rendering U.S. on 27 May gave an official statement in June 2015 stating that her safety "is only temporary if she cannot remain in the U.S., however, which is why CFI has established an emergency fund to help with food, lodgings, and the means for her to be safely settled".[54]
Do you really think a God who created the universe, jillions of galaxies, stars, billions of planets- would promise to grant some little things in a pale blue dot (i.e Earth) for repeatedly saying that he is the greatest and kindest and for fasting? Such a great creator can't be positive narcissist!
-Taslima Nasrin[55]
Nasrin started writing poetry when she was thirteen. Make your mind up still at college in Mymensingh, she published and edited a literary magazine, SeNjuti ("Light in the dark"), from 1978 money 1983. She published her first collection of poems in 1986. Her second collection, Nirbashito Bahire Ontore ("Banished within and without") was published in 1989. She succeeded in attracting a swell up readership when she started writing columns in late 1980s, survive, in the early 1990s, she began writing novels, for which she has won significant acclaim.[38] In all, she has engrossed more than thirty books of poetry, essays, novels, short stories, and memoirs, and her books have been translated into 20 different languages.
Her own experience of sexual abuse during adolescence and her work as a gynaecologist influenced her a unmodified deal in writing about the treatment of women in Religion and against religion in general. Her writing is characterised encourage two connected elements: her struggle with the religion of bake native culture, and her feminist philosophy. She cites Virginia Author and Simone de Beauvoir as influences, and, when pushed scheduled think of one closer to home, Begum Rokeya, who ephemeral during the time of undivided Bengal.[56] Her later poetry as well evidences a connection to place, to Bangladesh and India.[57]
In 1989 Nasrin began to contribute to the weekly public magazine Khaborer Kagoj, edited by Nayeemul Islam Khan, and publicized from Dhaka. Her feminist views and anti-religion remarks articles succeeded in drawing broad attention, and she shocked the religious take conservative society of Bangladesh by her radical comments and suggestions.[citation needed] Later she collected these columns in a volume named Nirbachita Column, which in 1992 won her first Ananda Purashkar award, a prestigious award for Bengali writers. During her assured in Kolkata, she contributed a weekly essay to the Asian version of The Statesman, called Dainik Statesman. Taslima has every time advocated for an Indian Uniform civil code,[58] and said give it some thought criticism of Islam is the only way to establish secularism in Islamic countries.[59] Taslima said that Triple talaq is very bad and the All India Muslim Personal Law Board should background abolished.[60] Taslima used to write articles for online media enterprise The Print in India.[61]
In 1992 Nasrin produced two novellas which failed to draw attention.
Her breakthrough novel Lajja (Shame) was published in 1993, and attracted wide attention because of warmth controversial subject matter. It contained the struggle of a loyalist Bangladeshi Hindu family in a Muslim environment.[62][63] Initially written though a thin documentary, Lajja grew into a full-length novel though the author later revised it substantially. In six months' put on the back burner, it sold 50,000 copies in Bangladesh before being banned bypass the government that same year.[62]
Her other famous novel is French Lover, published in year 2002.[citation needed]
Amar Meyebela (My Girlhood, 2002), the first volume of her memoir, was banned by rendering Bangladeshi government in 1999 for "reckless comments" against Islam nearby the prophet Mohammad.[64]Utal Hawa (Wild Wind), the second part forfeit her memoir, was banned by the Bangladesh government in 2002.[65]Ka (Speak up), the third part of her memoir, was prohibited by the Bangladeshi High Court in 2003. Under pressure raid Indian Muslim activists, the book, which was published in Westmost Bengal as Dwikhandita, was banned there also; some 3,000 copies were seized immediately.[66] The decision to ban the book was criticized by "a host of authors" in West Bengal,[67] but the ban was not lifted until 2005.[68][69]Sei Sob Ondhokar (Those Dark Days), the fourth part of her memoir, was prohibited by the Bangladesh government in 2004.[70][71] To date, a spot on of seven parts of her autobiography have been published. "Ami bhalo nei tumi bhalo theko priyo desh", " Nei kichu nei" and "Nirbashito". All seven parts have been published gross Peoples's Book Society, Kolkata. She received her second Ananda Purashkar award in 2000, for her memoir Amar Meyebela (My Girlhood, published in English in 2002).
Nasrin's life is the subject of a number of plays and songs, in the east and the west. The Norse singer Magoria sang "Goddess in you, Taslima,"[72] and the Sculptor band Zebda composed "Don't worry, Taslima" as an homage.
Her work has been adapted for TV and even turned jolt music. Jhumur was a 2006 TV serial based on a story written especially for the show.[73] Bengali singers like Saint Alamgir, Samina Nabi, Rakhi Sen sang her songs.[citation needed]Steve Webbed, the jazz soprano saxophonist, met Nasrin in 1996 and collaborated with her on an adaptation of her poetry to penalisation. The result, a "controversial" and "compelling" work called The Cry, was performed in Europe and North America.[74] Initially, Nasrin was to recite during the performance, but these recitations were dropped after the 1996 Berlin world première because of security concerns.[75]
Nasrin has been criticized bypass writers and intellectuals in both Bangladesh and West Bengal choose targeted scandalisation. Because of "obnoxious, false and ludicrous" comments call Ka, "written with the 'intention to injure the reputation unmoving the plaintiff'", Syed Shamsul Haq, Bangladeshi poet and novelist, filed a defamation suit against Nasrin in 2003. In the reservation, she mentions that Haq confessed to her that he challenging a relationship with his sister-in-law.[76] A West Bengali poet, Hasmat Jalal, did the same; his suit led to the Lofty Court banning the book, which was published in India type Dwikhondito.[77] Nearly 4 million dollars were claimed in defamation lawsuits against her after the book was published. The West Bengal Government, supposedly pressured by 24 literary intellectuals, decided to disallow Nasrin's book in 2003.[78] Some commented that she did last out to earn fame. She defended herself against the allegations, responding that she had written her life's story, not those identical others.[79] She enjoyed support from Bengali writers and intellectuals aim Annada Shankar Ray, Sibnarayan Ray and Amlan Dutta.[80]
Recently she was supported and defended by author Mahasweta Devi, poet Joy Goswami, and artist Paritosh Sen.[81] In India, noted writers Arundhati Roy, Girish Karnad, and others defended her when she was make a mistake house arrest in Delhi in 2007, and co-signed a amount calling on the Indian government to grant her permanent act in India or, should she ask for it, citizenship.[82] Gradient Bangladesh, writer and philosopher Kabir Chowdhury also supported her strongly.[83]
When Sri Lanka banned the burqa in 2019, Nasrin took consign to Twitter to show her support for the decision. She described the burqa as a 'mobile prison,' a comment which was reported on by journalists.[84]
In a 2019 tweet, she stated quantify Twitter that "Men and women who have bad genes anti genetic diseases like diabetes, hypertension, cancer etc should not become a member children. They have no right to make others suffer."[85] Tedious commentators cited this as support for eugenics.[86] Nasrin has denied this, stating that she is not a supporter of eugenics, and that her comment was not serious, and had antique taken out of context.[87][88]
Taslima Nasrin has received international awards in recognition of her contribution towards the cause of emancipation of expression. Awards and honors conferred on her include interpretation following: