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This month, before her visa application was examined by the Union government, she told the Ministry of Home Affairs that she was not willing to come to Kolkata.
“Her visa has been extended for six months. And so far as her coming to Kolkata is concerned, she herself said she did not want to go there,” Union Home Secretary G K Pillai told The Indian Express over phone from Delhi.
The author, who has been living in exile since 1994, had to leave Kolkata in November 2007 and was first taken to Jaipur and later brought to Delhi, where she was given shelter in a well-protected house. She ultimately had to leave the country.
The author said she understood the situation in Kolkata and would wait for the right moment. “I will come to Kolkata when the right moment comes or you can say when the state government allows me,” the author said over phone from Delhi. She said she was spending time reading books and talking to friends.
The state government said it had not received any request from the author. “We can only consider her request for permission to come to Kolkata only when she sends in a formal request,” state Home Secretary Ardhendu Sen said.
Renowned author and Sahitya Academy president Sunil Gangopadhyay also ruled out hopes of Taslima’s return to Kolkata anytime soon.
“The situation here is still so hot that the state government will not allow her in. I myself tried to make things easy for her by appealing to Imam Barkati to withdraw the fatwa against her but he did not pay heed. Given the present situation the Left Front government is in, it would be the one to allow her in. I feel for her and want her to come here but what do I do?” the author said.
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Nasreen has a visa to India, but one that is not valid in Kolkata? And the great leftist intellectuals of Kolkata like SunilG say that they have appealed to the muslim cleric but can't do anymore? Why not stop supporting the left govt for a start my friend? The left govt who is trying to appease muslims with job reservations and claims to be secular is not able to provide Nasreen security in Kolkata. And the central govt plays along. What a joke.
In a 20 Feb 2010 story, S. Bandopadhyay wrote that Union Home Secretary G K Pillai told your journal by phone that Taslima Nasrin's "visa has been extended for six months. And so far as her coming to Kolkata is concerned, she herself said she did not want to go there." A fellow journalist, I question that, for she told me otherwise. As for India's giving her "a shelter in a well-protected house" so she would not be attacked by Muslims, the press in India previously reported, and she confirmed to me, that she'd been locked into a place from which she could not leave nor even have visitors, that even French President Nicolas Sarkozy could not visit her to give her France's prestigious Simone de Beauvoir Award. A journalist, Nasrin has been reporting different facts. It would be helpful for another reporter to write a disinterested account, for just as here in the United States we're experiencing a decline in democracy, so maybe it's also the case in India. India's still a democracy?