Taslima Nasreen withdraws portions from Dwikhandita

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Tossed around from place to place, Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen on Friday announced that she was withdrawing some controversial writings from one of her novels that had triggered violence and demands that she be expelled from India.

“I am withdrawing controversial lines in Dwikhandita (split into two), written in 2002 with the memory of Bangladesh in the 1980s, when military threw out secularism in the country.

“I wrote the book in support of the people who defended secular values. I had no intention to hurt anybody’s sentiment. Now since some people in India claim that it hurts their sentiments, I am withdrawing some lines from the book,” Nasreen said.

Her announcement came in the wake of a statement in Parliament by external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee who, while assuring shelter to her in India, had asked her to refrain from expressions that may hurt the sentiments of the people in the country.

Ever since violence broke out in Kolkata last week, there have been demands from Muslim outfits that the visa of Taslima, who has been living in India for the last two years, should be revoked and she be expelled.

Facing death threats over her writings considered “anti-Islamic”, she left Bangladesh in 1994 and had been visiting India intermittently.

Dwikhandita, her autobiographical novel on socio-religious issues of Bangladesh, was banned by the West Bengal government for some time before Calcutta High Court had intervened to lift it.