Few days ago when parliament was discussing recapture of Nandigram villages near Calcutta by violent communist cadres TV channels erupted by news of violence engulfing the city - Kolkata was burning. Protesters organized by largely unknown umbrella outfit All India Minority Forum were throwing stones at police, torching buses and cars, the city centre was completely paralyzed that West Bengal government was forced to use riot police which dispersed protesters with tear gas and rubber bullets and call in Indian army imposing night curfew.

Fortunately the next day life was back to normal. Indian cities occasionally host riots sometimes with casualties like yesterday in Guwahati (Assam), the biggest city in the Norh-East, where indigenous tribes adivasis were demanding Scheduled Tribe status. Tribals resorted to damaging private property, smashing car windows, etc and in ensuing clashes between locals (protecting their property) and tribals one man died, hundreds were injured.

As attention of the country was on Nandigram the Kolkata riots immediately shot up into headlines. However not many noticed that protesters against CPM atrocities on Muslim minorities in Nandigram raised another issue - to deport controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen from Kolkata and from India.

Then West Bengal communist government asked her to leave the city, booking flight to Jaipur, capital of western state Rajasthan. 2 policemen escorted her. In Jaipur Taslima spent a night in moderate hotel, 30 policemen guarded her room fortunately not from attackers but from sizable media corpus. Next morning she was driven to Delhi where she was lodged in heavily protected Rajasthan House. Whole flight from Kolkata to Delhi via Japur she did not speak to press but yesterday night (it was aired around 12 pm) Barkha Dutt, managing director of NDTV managed to sneak into her room, smuggle camera and Taslima spoke few words about her love to Kolkata and intense desire to return.

Taslima on NDTV.

Who is Taslima Nasreen? Why she lives like fugitive becoming hot political potato which political parties in India at least ruling parties cannot handle? I never heard about her before August 9th of this year when she was attacked by parliamentarians of southern state Andhra Pradesh from minor muslim party Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) while she was in Hyderabad releasing Telugu translation of her latest book Shodh. Legislators not only rain books, flowerpots and chairs on her, they issued threats to behead her if she dares to visit the city again.

Taslima attacked by MIM legislators.

The barbaric action drew some attention of media; it was roundly condemned, though many thought it was gimmick on part of MIM which is losing its traditional stronghold Hyderabad with considerable muslim population to communist parties. Taslima's writings are also not everyone's cup of tea, liberal Outlook where she wrote 2 columns in which she attacked Muslim society and spoke against the purdah (custom of keeping women in seclusion) noticed: "It would be a fair assesment to say that no Muslim, liberal or conservative, thinks highly of Taslima. Liberals dismiss her as an average writer who has joined the brigade of Muslims who have discovered the great marketability of lampooning Islam. A Salman Rushdie she is certainly not. Conservatives see her as a shameless, publicity-seeking woman, who undermines everything they believe in".

Yet for Hindus she became symbol of emancipated muslim woman and threats from fundamentalists only strengthened their determination to help Taslima. The chore of pro-Taslima voices consists from right-wing BJP to left-wing secular intellectuals. Where in this combination falls position of the government remains unclear as both ruling dispensations communists and Congress have been courting muslim votes so-called vote-bank politics.

Here are excerpts from interview Taslima Nasreen has given to Frontline after attack, it gives pretty good picture about her feminist ideas.

Did you think your life was in any real danger when you were attacked in the Hyderabad Press Club, or did you think it was another act of intimidation to get political mileage? After all, the attackers were led by three MLAs belonging to the Majlis e-Ittehadul Muslimeen party?
The whole thing happened so suddenly that at that point I seriously thought they were going to kill me. When I can think about it in retrospect, I suspect that it was more politically motivated because if they really wanted to kill me, they could easily have done so. But at that time I had no idea who they were. I had no clue that they were legislators and political activists. All I knew was that for the last 16 years I was a target for Muslim fundamentalists...
I am fully aware that Muslim fundamentalists want to see me dead and I have lived with this threat for years now. So, when that sudden attack took place, I naturally thought they were there to kill me. But now when I think about it in a detached manner, I feel it must have been a political move.
Later, I heard that another group of fundamentalists - I do not recall its name - criticized my attackers for not eliminating me. The situation has come to such a pass that threatening to kill a person is something that they take pride in - as though to kill is a very noble deed. It is almost like a competition among these groups to achieve the goal of killing me. I am amazed how people can so freely and proudly make such threats in a democratic society. Some people from Hyderabad have joined the imam of the Tipu Sultan Mosque in offering a reward for my head. Do they not know the meaning of democracy? Are they not aware of the freedom of speech and the right to express oneself? After so many years, have they learnt nothing? If they have not, then it is the duty of the country to educate them. Monsters are created when you keep them segregated in their own darkness.
I am only a writer. I am not trying to hurt anyone. In all societies, through the ages, there have always been differences of opinion. Everyone does not have the same view; neither is it possible for me to keep everyone happy all the time with my opinions, particularly when you consider the subject matter of my writings - social traditions and the rights of women. Those who wish to deny women their rights in the name of tradition will obviously oppose me; those who wish to remain in the darkness of superstitions and religious blindness will obviously oppose me. I have seen that attitude in all fundamentalists; be it Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, whatever, it is the same. They are opposed to the liberation of women and their right to enjoy the same rights as men. All rational people, and I include many religious persons among them, are fighting against such fundamentalism. Being religious is a personal matter. I have many friends who are religious, but they never harm anybody; they are not intolerant like fundamentalists. A fundamentalist, no matter of what religion, does not believe in plurality of thought and in individual freedom. What he believes in is group loyalty. From a very early age, I freed myself from the shackles of religion and superstitions; it cannot be forced upon me now, can it?
Has all this ever made you think that it would be so much more convenient simply to apologize as Salman Rushdie did and get on with your life?
(Smiles) Not too many people are aware that Salman Rushdie apologized. In fact, that is the reason why we parted ways. I mean, why should I cry out aloud that I found that act cowardly? He was annoyed that I had said so. But I have never thought of apologizing because I never felt I had done anything wrong. If religious laws, practices, rituals and traditions were in favour of women, I would not have uttered a single word. I am a writer who uses simple language so that the common people can understand what I have to say. I basically write on four issues: human rights, women's rights, secularism and humanism. Are these not good issues? Do I stop writing on any one of these issues? Everything I have ever written was based on these four issues.
Such violent reactions are also a kind of assurance that I have been able to strike at the right place. I have always opposed those institutions and people who like to subjugate women, who deny women their freedom. When they react, I know I am on the right track. But one thing I am absolutely sure of: these people baying for my blood have never read any of my books, any of my writings.

What will be next? I don't know. One Idris Ali, chairman of fore-mentioned All India Minority Forum, who was after Taslima's blood, was arrested yesterday evening in Kolkata for inciting violence. Taslima hopes to return to her new home in Kolkata and get Indian citizenship if possible - BJP already demanded it. But ruling parties are wary of losing uneducated Muslims support and do not dare to take clear decision - to reject her plea for citizenship, to deport her, to grant her citizenship, or whatever. They want to get rid of her, persuading to embark on tourist trip to Thailand or Europe, buying one-way ticket, but she does not want to leave the country finding here overall liberal and tolerant society, and people of West Bengal speak her native Bengali. So authorities renew her visa every 6 months and make some security arrangements but the issue is not solved and dragged on. There is crying lack of political will and leadership in today's India to tackle even one individual's problem though we should admit that with her unrepentant stance in largely conservative Muslim society she raised fundamental questions for Indian democracy. I usually do not agree with opinion of conservative Indian Express columnist Tavleen Singh but today she expressed what most Indians think of this controversy:

How interesting to see Islamism raise its ugly little head in secular, Marxist West Bengal last week. And how interesting that those proud warriors against `communalism' that constitute the West Bengal government should kowtow to the worst kind of religious fanatics by throwing Taslima Nasreen out of the state on a midnight flight to Rajasthan. Tch, tch, tch! What is happening to Marxists these days?...

Taslima Nasreen is a writer. An intellectual refugee who fled the wrath of Islamists in her native Bangladesh to seek shelter in a country that supposedly stands for secularism and freedom of thought. We owe her protection or we violate the fundamental principles of our Constitution....

Taslima Nasreen has been living quietly in Kolkata, making almost no public appearances since she was attacked by Islamists in Hyderabad a few months ago. Why was her name dragged into the protests against what happened in Nandigram? Liberal, secular journalists report that the Islamist mobs that destroyed public property and stoned policemen in Kolkata were incensed not just over Nandigram but over some article that appeared in an obscure Bengali newspaper....

As for me,... I would like to say that there is no room for Islamists in India. They must be deported to a country like Saudi Arabia where life runs according to the laws of the Shariat, or so the Saudis tell us. Last week a 19-year-old girl, who was gang-raped because she was seen in the company of a man who was not her husband, brother or father, was sentenced to a punishment of 200 lashes. This is the sort of primitive justice that our homegrown Islamists approve of but they must be told firmly that this is not the Indian way. In secular India, secular laws apply and it is the rapist who gets punished and not the victim...

...in the name of `secularism' the prime minister has closed his eyes ... to the increasing number of organisations that shield Islamism. They function openly in our cities, and if they are not openly spreading poison against other religions, they are actively involved in promoting the idea that the only religion worthy of respect is Islam. That these organisations are dangerously influential is evident from the thousands of ordinary Muslims that pour into the streets to protest against whatever they are told is the new Islamist cause.

...If there is one thing, in my humble view, that can bring all of our hopes and dreams crashing down, it is radical Islam. It is dangerous for our policymakers to continue to ignore the threat we face from the military-mullah dictatorships in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

It is because they make no distinction between ordinary Indian Muslims and Islamists that no action has been taken so far against the front organisations of radical Islam. It is these organisations that are directly responsible for the kind of meaningless violence we saw in Kolkata last week. They must be stopped.

I do agree with most she wrote this time - They must be stopped though definitely not deported to Saudi Arabia. Reconciliating ancient prejudices and modernity is not easy task in such mammoth society and modernity should have its way. Fundamentalism is not acceptable especially with chilling threats to heretics. India with wonderfully tolerant, liberal culture tries hard and we will see how she will cope with this problem.