IT’S ALL ABOUT the Muslim vote bank whether it is red, green or saffron. And it is here where Taslima Nasreen’s fate in India hangs in balance.  With signs of fresh unrest in Kolkata where eminent personalities have demanded that the Bangladeshi writer be allowed to come back to the city and with a rally being brought out today in Kolkata on the issue, the External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee has had to come clean on what’s on with Taslima.

He made it abundantly clear while attending a function in Calcutta University on Saturday that Taslima was not under “house arrest” in New Delhi, a term being bandied about by the novelist and her supporters.   Mukherjee said that he had already made a statement in Lok Sabha on the issue. He reiterated that she is free to stay in India “as long as she wishes”.  “She is our guest and she is free to stay in the country as long as she wants to.”  He said “we do not turn away foreigners seeking to stay in India. It is not our policy.”

The Minister said that if Taslima was having a problem all she has to do is tell the people looking after her and they would resolve the issue. Mukherjee, rather firmly pointed out that he had said in Parliament that Taslima needs to note that if she had to stay in India she has to be mindful of what she does or writes. “She has to be careful not to hurt the sentiments of a section of the people in the country.” He pointed out that there has been trouble in parts of the country, including Kolkata over her. Mukherjee tacitly admitted that she was a security risk and that she had been kept in a safe house.

Asked whether she would be allowed to come back to Kolkata, Mukherjee tersely said “She needs to ask herself why she had to leave Kolkata.”

On the Taslima issue both the CPI (M) led Left Front and the Congress are in the same boat. Neither political party is willing to risk the Muslim vote bank which in Bengal accounts for 26 percent. The Front government literally hounded her out to Rajasthan after riots broke out in Kolkata on November 22. The BJP with all its bravado did not entertain her either and she was shooed out of Jaipur before landing on the Centre’s lap.

Forces in the Muslim community in the country have taken singular exception to her views on Islam in her contentious book ‘Dwikhondito’’. She had refused to drop the section despite being harassed in several places including Hyderabad. It was only after her unceremonious exit from Kolkata and her tainted sojourn in Jaipur did she decide to drop the “offensive portion” in her book for the next edition. Now she is pining to return to Kolkata.  

Taslima has complained to the media that it seemed she was under house arrest. She was not being allowed to go out and meet people. She was totally confined and expressed a desire to go back to Kolkata, a place she loves. Incidentally, she has cancelled the sixth part of her autobiography which was slated to be published before the Kolkata Book Fair at the end of this month. She told the media that she was not in the frame of mind to finish writing it.