‘Why are we only targeting Hindu fundamentalism’: asks renowned Bangladeshi writer

While attending a discussion session over the mounting intolerance in the country in the Kerala Literature Festival, famous Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin questioned the Indian secularism which is only targeting the Hindu fundamentalism, ignoring radical minority fundamentalism. In contrary to the intolerance debates, she claims that most of the people in India tolerate other religions or faiths. She asserts that India is far better than Bangladesh. The writer is currently in exile since early 1994 for writing a novel against the fundamentalist Bangladeshi government. Meanwhile, she accepts that there are some group of people in the country who are intolerant. These small minority sections are creating issues to bring up the intolerance talks, she added. Writer virtually denotes the current Indian politics as a war between the fundamentalist and secularism. In addition, she further elucidates that these is a war in the country between those people who respect freedom and those people who ignore it. Meanwhile, writer Nasrin said that the women are not getting much opportunity to express her thoughts through their writings. She added that they are often categorised and criticised by the society. Malayalam writer K. Sachidanandan was the co-debater in the discussion session. Nasrin had read some of her latest poems in the interaction session of the debate on the request of the co-debater. The first Kerala Literature Festival that held at Kozhikode began on February 4 and ended on February 7. Several noted personalities from the writer’s world –like Sara Joseph, M Mukundan, Kamal, K R Meera, Anitha Nair, Ajitha and many more- participated in the writer’s festival. Sachidanandan was the director of the show, which was organised by the DC foundation. There were four separate venues for different categories of literature – Azuthola, Vellitira, Toolika, Aksharam.

Vignesh

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