‘Never left willingly’: Taslima Nasreen Returns To Kolkata After 19 years

Exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen returned to Kolkata on Friday, nearly two decades after she was forced to leave the city following protests over her writings. The 63-year-old author’s arrival marks her first public appearance in Kolkata since 2007.

“I am really liking it here,” Nasreen said after landing at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport.

Nasreen, who now lives in Delhi on a long-term residence permit, has described her return to Kolkata as a “personal homecoming”, saying she had never given up hope of coming back to the city.

‘I never left Kolkata willingly’

Ahead of her return, Nasreen told PTI that leaving Kolkata had not been her choice and recalled waiting for years for an opportunity to return.

“I never left Kolkata willingly; the then West Bengal government forced me to leave the state. Yet I never stopped hoping that one day I would return. Year after year passed, governments changed, and still the door remained closed,” she said.

Nasreen had made Kolkata her home after leaving Bangladesh. However, protests over her writings led to her departure from the city in 2007.

Her memoir ‘Dwikhandito’ had earlier been banned by the then Left Front government in West Bengal in 2003 on the grounds that it allegedly hurt religious sentiments.

First public appearance in city since 2007

Nasreen’s Friday arrival is her first public appearance in Kolkata in 19 years, bringing her back to a city she had lived in before being forced to leave amid protests.

She is scheduled to attend a programme against fundamentalism at Rabindra Sadan on Saturday. West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari and renowned Bengali author Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay are also likely to attend the event.

For Nasreen, the visit brings an almost two-decade wait to an end after she repeatedly expressed her desire to return to Kolkata.