– Shabana Javed
Exiled writer Taslima Nasrin’s controversial play Lajja has been banned in West Bengal by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Nasrin confirmed the ban through a Facebook post. The play was scheduled to be staged at Gobardanga and during the Pandua Theatre Festival in Hooghly.
Expressing her frustration on Facebook, Taslima alleged that state police intervened to prevent the staging of Lajja and pressured the organisers to remove it from the festival lineup. According to Nasrin, the authorities justified their actions by citing fears of unrest. She wrote, “The theatre festival has been advertised for two months, but without warning, Mamata Banerjee’s police announced that all plays could be staged except for Lajja.”
The Pandua Theatre Festival, which began on December 25, originally planned to showcase Lajja on December 29. Nasrin claimed the police cited potential backlash from the Muslim community as the reason for the ban and questioned why the state government was targeting art and literature.
The ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) dismissed her allegations. Asit Chattopadhyay, TMC’s Hooghly district secretary, suggested that Nasrin should contact the organisers instead of making “unsubstantiated claims” online. He accused her of “trying to fish in troubled political waters.”
Taslima Nasrin’s novel Lajja was first published in 1993 and was banned in Bangladesh shortly thereafter. Following the ban, Nasrin faced death threats, prompting her to flee Bangladesh in 1994. She spent years in exile across Sweden, Germany, France, and the United States before securing a visa to India.
In 2004, Nasrin moved to Kolkata, where she lived until 2007. However, violent protests erupted that year, demanding her expulsion. Prominent figures, including Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind’s Bengal chapter leader Siddiqullah Choudhury (now a minister in the state government), burned her effigy, while CPM state secretary Biman Bose stated she should leave Kolkata because “some people don’t want her to stay here.”
Amid the unrest, Nasrin relocated to New Delhi, where she lived under house arrest for three months before leaving India in 2008.
