The traditional month-long book fair ended last February. The book fair commemorates the fallen heroes who sacrificed their lives on 21 February 1952 to establish Bangla (or Bengali) as the mother language.
Presently, the day is observed worldwide as International Mothers Language Day, declared by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
However, the threats of Islamic extremists and radicalised Muslims have not been contained by law enforcement agencies. Each year, a book stall or free-thinker writers, poets and bloggers were attacked.
At least two writers, Humayun Azad, a teacher of Dhaka University and an exiled free-thinker and popular science writer, Avijit Roy were hacked to death jihadist. Attackers killed a US-Bangladeshi blogger whose writings on religion angered Islamist hardliners. Roy, an atheist who advocated secularism and religious freedom, was attacked as he walked out of the book fair with his wife. She was also grievously hurt in the attack.
The Islamists had accused them of blasphemy, meaning hurting the Muslims for critiquing the Quran, the prophet Muhammad, revered by Muslims and the existence of Allah.
Anyway, at Dhaka the book fair is held in the Dhaka University campus, the incident took place in the evening at the stall of the publisher Sabyasachi Prokashoni.
The incident unfolded on the 10th day of the fair, the angry crowd of “Towhidi Janata” from the Madrassa (Islamic schools) stormed the Sabyasachi Prokashoni and demanded that Taslima’s books should be removed. Police shut down a stall at the ‘Amar Ekushey Boi Mela’ (book fair) following an altercation over books by a feminist writer. Later, police went to the spot and covered the stall with a tarpaulin and only one was arrested. After a temporary shutdown, it has been reopened.
The Sabyasachi stall has been at the centre of discussion for some time, when multiple posts on social media called for the demolition of a book stall at the book fair, alleging that the publisher was promoting atheism. Prof Mohammad Azam, director general of Bangla Academy, said the police had closed down the bookstall to maintain law and order.
The Chief Adviser of the Interim Government, Prof Muhammad Yunus, has condemned the recent mob attack on the bookstall, calling it an affront to the rights of Bangladeshi citizens and the country’s laws.
In a statement, he denounced the violence, emphasising that it goes against the open-minded spirit of the book fair, which honours the language martyrs of 21 February 1952.
Taslima Nasrin condemned the government’s alleged support for extremists and the attack on her publisher. However, the book is available for sale online.
The government ordered the police and the Bangla Academy to investigate the incident and bring the culprits to book. S8xty-three years-old Taslima is a prolific writer, physician, feminist, secular humanist and activist on religious freedom. The writer is known for her writings on the oppression of women and criticism of women’s rights in Islamic laws. Two of her books Lajja (Shame) and Amar Meyebela (My Girlhood), the first volume of her autobiography, were banned in Bangladesh.
Nasrin was forced out of her country because of her controversial writings, which many Muslims felt discredited Islam. Her plight was often compared to that of Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses (1988). Taslima was physically attacked while giving autographs to hundreds of fans by the Muslim extremists at the book fair in 1992. The protesters vandalised the bookstall that objected to her writings. She was asked by the book fair committee not to visit the fair anymore. The writer was again attacked in August 2007 in Hyderabad while attending an event on the Telugu translation of one of her novels, Shodh. She was physically assaulted on the podium led by legislators from the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, an Indian Islamist political party.
Earlier, she was invited to inaugurate her book in Mumbai, India. However, the Islamic extremists launched a campaign against her and declared that they would burn her alive if she arrived in Mumbai. She cancelled her trip to Mumbai. Contrary to Muslim practice, she wore her hair short and smoked cigarettes, and she eschewed traditional Muslim dress. Her writing and behaviour enraged and offended conservative Sunni Muslims. The writer was forced to go into exile after Mullahs and extremist Muslims issued a Fatwa (religious decree) in 1993 declaring prize money for her head and demanding the authorities arrest her for blasphemy and insults to Islam. She immediately went into hiding. After a High Court order to travel abroad, she fled the country and lived briefly in Sweden, Germany, France and the United States.
In a similar incident, popular young poet Daud Haider in 1973, two years after the brutal birth of Bangladesh, wrote a poem which angered the Islamists. Thousands of Mullahs poured into the street and demanded death for the apostate.
The countrywide street protests by the Islamists accused him of blasphemy for insulting the Prophet Muhammad. President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who advocated for zero tolerance of Islamic extremism, had arrested the poet to keep the Mullahs in good humour. He was tortured in custody and then forced into exile. The Islamists who attacked him and even killed one of his cousins were never punished.
Daud was sheltered in India for some time, like the much more famous Taslima Nasreen, quietly protected by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s government. And later he was given asylum in Germany. Like Taslima, Daud never dared to return to Bangladesh.
Taslima came to the international limelight after her book Lajja (Shame) was published in different languages and Time, Vogue and several other magazines put her on their cover.
Her documentary novel Lajja, which is a protest against the torture of the Hindu community of Bangladesh, was published. She wrote withering diatribes against the oppression of women and the Islamic code. She described the Muslims of East Bengal are radicalised, misogynist and male-chauvinist.
Taslima has won many awards, including Ananda Puroshkar, an Indian literary award; the Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought from the European Parliament; the Kurt Tuckholsky award from Swedish PEN; a human rights prize from the French government; and a humanist award from the International Humanist and Ethical Union. This interview took place in France in early 2000.
She moved to Kolkata, India, to live near her home – Bangladesh. Later, she was shocked when the West Bengal authorities expelled her. Authorities in Bangladesh until now have refused to reissue her passport despite her applying for her passport at the Bangladesh missions abroad.
First published in International Affairs Review, New Delhi, India on 12 April 2025
The author is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. He is also a media rights defender with Reporters Without Borders and recipient of the Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. Twitter (X): @saleemsamad
