By Ripun Chhabra:
Taslima Nasreen, a Bangladeshi author accused Sunil Gangopadhyay for molesting her and other women. Sunil Gangopadhyay — a legendary Bengali writer and president of Sahitya Academy, is the one in power in this case who molested Taslima when she just returned to India from France. At that instant, she didn’t have much say so the exploitation went unnoticed. Speaking of Sunil G, he recently criticized Mamata Banerjee government for banning a book written by a senior IPS officer of Bengal cadre, Nazrul Islam, in which he suggested some do’s and don’ts for the Muslims. Mamata’s government banned his book so that she could retain the vote bank of the Muslims. That’s not it; Nazrul was also transferred various times for speaking his mind. It is quite prominent here that he was being exploited and played with by the people in power (Mamata’s government).
When asked the reason behind raising the topic of molestation after so many years, Taslima said, “I was tweeting against book banning and found Sunil G lying about it. He said he was against banning the book. But he was the man behind banning of my book, Dwikhandita in 2003.” Another incident that comes into light here is that because of her views, especially about the rules of Islam for Muslim women, she was out casted. She was asked by the Government to leave the state in 2007. Even today, she has no right to live in Bengal or Bangladesh. This certainly portrays how the people in power misuse their power to dictate and exploit others. The most recent incident was when Kolkata Book Fair cancelled the release of her upcoming book “Nirbashan” (Exile). This was due to warning from Government which made clear that events of this kind can lead to uneasy situations and a lot of nuisance.
Political parties certainly use people to fulfil their own personal interests. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee lashed out at the media alleging some TV channels paid money to leaders and intellectuals to speak against the Government. How easily she said that. Being in power, they seen to have every right to exploit people and play the blame game. It is vivid that people in power are able to exploit the people very easily for their own interest. In this case of Taslima, they are also promoting fundamentalism.