Outlook English - Print Subscribers Copy Outlook English, 26 February 2018 | Page 37
LOST SOUL A
candlelight vigil in
Calcutta in 2007
mourns Rizwanur
Rahman
As per the classic forms of patriarchy that seeks to con
trol women, the Calcutta Police felt that it was ‘protecting’
Priyanka by snatching her from her husband. A police
officer had said, “It is not just that she is a Hindu and he a
Muslim, but they were from entirely different economic
backgrounds. He lived in the slums of one of Calcutta’s
most congested neighborhoods. Soon she would have...
realised her mistake.” Yet another offensive remark—“He
was an upwardly mobile man from a poverty-ridden family
who was using her as a ticket to a better life”—exposed
the deep-rooted scorn fo r the poor and the disadvantaged
harboured by the administration and their powerful
cronies. As if in a trice, the government—which had been
forced into a hasty retreat by the furore—lay exposed as an
obscurantist, reactionary regime.
It is telling that soon after the Rizwanur incident, Bangla
deshi author Tasleema Nasreen, who had been living in exile
in Calcutta, was unceremoniously evicted from her rented
apartment in Calcutta after several hardline Muslim organ
isations objected to her presence and made her leave the
state in less than 24 hours. Left leaders cited fears of religious
clashes as the reason, with prominent leaders declaring that
“if her continued presence in West Bengal was disturbing the
peace of the state, she should leave”.
The incident has been interpreted as being an attempt
by the Left to curry favour with Muslims, who had been
alienated en masse by the Rizwanur episode. Speaking to
Outlook, Nasreen expressed concern that West Bengal, a
state known for its secular ethos, was “bowing to the diktat
of the moulavis”. She said that she was pained that the Left
displayed a complete lack of respect for women not just
because they hounded a woman and threw her out without
any prior intimation, but because the incident shattered her
trust in a ‘secular’ state and was tantamount to negating the
crux of her writing, which deplored the religious oppression
of women. “After I was chased out of my country I found ref
uge in Calcutta and made it my home. I had felt that this was
the perfect city.... Not only could I communicate in Bengali,
which I could not do anywhere else in the world, but this
was a place where I felt I had the creative freedom to express
myself,” Nasreen had said. “I had not thought that a Commu
nist regime which advocated secularism, justice and equality
would bow to the diktats of dogmatic clergy who are against
women’s rights,” she added bitterly.
Khadija Bano, head of a women’s NGO, who had been on the
forefront of a battle against triple talaq, agrees that women
have faced the brunt of policies which try to keep orthodox
community elders happy as they dictate voting patterns.
“Without exception, the political class has reduced women to
non-entities. And the former regime was no exception.”
CPI(M) MP Mohammad Selim points out, however, that
particular incidents cannot determine the general approach
of any group or its ideology. “It must be remembered that
Communist ideology does not get impacted. That remains.”
Unfortunately, in spite of its assertions to the contrary,
the Left regime’s closing years in Bengal was woefu
lly tainted by gender insensitivity—whether it was the
flagrant and criminal violation of a women’s bodies in
the rapes in Nandigram, Singur and Birati, allegedly by
ruling party goons/cadres, or coercing a woman to end her
marriage. If the Left really wants to make a comeback in
Bengal, it should try to understand what women want. O
26 February 2018 OUTLOOK 37