Shame that in BJP-ruled Maharashtra, Taslima Nasreen was dubbed a ‘law and order problem’
The noted Bnagladeshi author who is in exile in India since 2004, Taslima Nasreen, is known for her outspoken critique of fundamental Islamism as well as hardline Hindutva. A known atheist, Nasreen minces no words when she critically takes down the politised presence of organised religions, and therefore, becomes the target of fanatics from both ends.
However, the fact that Nasreen had to turn back from Aurangabad airport in central Maharashtra, because AIMIM members, including an MLA Imtiyaz Jaleel, didn’t want her inside the city with a sizeable Muslim population, about 30 per cent – is laughable. Laughable, not only because in 2017, authors and writers are ritually hounded for their views, but that this happened in a BJP-ruled state.
Of course, the PTI report says Nasreen was sent back from the Aurangabad airport – Chikalthana Airport – because there was a crowd gathered there shouting slogans like “Taslima Go Back”. The report states:
“Police stopped the author from stepping out of the airport, where a crowd had gathered shouting slogans like ‘Taslima Go Back’. Deputy Commissioner of Police (zone-II) Rahul Shrirame said Nasreen was sent back to Mumbai by the next flight to avoid any ‘law and order problem’ in this city in central Maharashtra. The author was advised to abandon her visit to the city and she agreed to go back, the police officer said.
Ostensibly, the cops had asked for 30 minutes to provide her the Y-category security cover that she’s entitled to, which means 10 armed bodyguards follow her around everywhere she goes to. Nasreen, according to a Swarajya magazine piece, decided to junk her plans to visit Ajanta caves and Ellora temples in the historic city of Aurangabad, seeing the AIMIM crowd chanting opprobrium against her, asking her to not dare enter.
Now, here lies the crux of the many-layered problem. Protesters gathering outside the airport and her hotel where she had her reservations made, whether or not they belonged to AIMIM, were nevertheless not responsible for law and order in Maharashtra, despite having an AIMIM MLA in Jaleel, who is the legislator from the Aurangabad central constituency. The police is under the state home ministry, and as far the governance is concerned, they report to the Devendra Fadnavis-led BJP government.
Is Mr Fadnavis’ regime so incompetent as to be outsmarted and outdone by a bunch of AIMIM supporters? Is the Maharashtra Police so easily cowed down by the Islamist protesters, who were angry and upset with the fiercely independent and plain-speaking Nasreen?
It’s a crying shame that in 2017, Taslima Nasreen was dubbed a “law and order problem”, especially in a BJP-ruled state. In the war of narratives, it is important to set the record straight because allowing the protest against Nasreen to overwhelm her innocuous travel plans is exactly the kind of weaponised politics that suits the BJP and Hindutva narrative.
Let’s be honest enough to accept that hardliners in both Islam and Hindu religions live in a mutually symbiotic and toxic balance, as their mutual animosity and staged antipathy keep the social fabric suitably tense, and polarised along communal lines. Allowing an AIMIM protest to hijack Nasreen’s travel plans is exactly what the BJP needs at present to balance somewhat the incessant accusations that it’s against freedom of speech, that it’s overseeing the rise and rise of sociocultural intolerance, religious vigilantism and other obnoxious practices.
In other BJP-ruled states such as Uttar Pradesh, Hindu Vahini goons beat up cops when they try to do their job. In Maharashtra, on the other hand, the cops meekly let a handful of AIMIM protesters take centrestage, compel Nasreen to turn back and not repose faith in India’s, and indeed Maharashtra’s competence to uphold law and order at all times.
This particular breakdown of law and order, or the threat of a possible breakdown, is beautifully in line with the respective game of bipolarisation of the Indian society. As Nasreen tweeted:
I had a dream to visit Ellora and Ajanta caves. Can't believe it was not possible in the largest democracy in the world.
— taslima nasreen (@taslimanasreen) July 31, 2017
Nobody but security police in Aurangabad was informed about my itinerary & hotel booking. I wonder how fanatics got to know everything!
— taslima nasreen (@taslimanasreen) July 31, 2017
It’s the second tweet that’s actually interesting. According to Nasreen, “nobody but security police in Aurangabad was informed about [her] itinerary and hotel booking”. It makes us wonder, along with Nasreen herself, “how [the] fanatics got to know everything”.
Indeed it’s a pressing question. Will the leak in Aurangabad police be investigated? Or, will a mutually convenient display of religious antipathy to Taslima Nasreen, who has been hounded out of West Bengal under a pusillanimous Mamata Banjerjee government, will be raked in to score political brownie points by all those with vested interests?
Given that the BJP rarely misses an opportunity to rant against the Congress or TMC for their “minority appeasement”, what happened in Aurangabad today was nothing short of that. Exactly when it was needed to stand firm against the fanaticism of AIMIM cadre, the likes of Devendra Fadnavis capitulated like anything.
This is the same capitulation that the Fadnavis-led BJP government keeps doing before Shiv Sena, or the RSS brigade. How is it that an MLA – Imtiyaz Jaleel – who’s taken the oath to uphold the Constitution of India, was allowed to have his unconstitutional way of imposing mobocracy on a democracy?
Unless it works both ways, of course.