Writer Taslima Nasrin's Case Tests Secular Law in Muslim Bangladesh

By M.M. Ali

To appreciate the gravity of India's $285 million missile program, one needs to be knowledgeable about the recent history and the current geopolitical environment of South Asia. Similarly, to understand the widespread and militant reaction to the radical (read provocative) views expressed by Taslima Nasrin, one needs to be aware of the strong religious sentiments of 90 percent of the population of Bangladesh, and the revered place the Qur'an occupies in such a society.

The Taslima Nasrin Case

The furor that Taslima Nasrin's writings and views have created in the West is understandable as a human rights question. What also must be understood is that the public perception of human rights in the subcontinent may be closer to that of America's "silent majority" than that of the American Civil Liberties Union.

As Jawaharlal Nehru put it, there are no absolute rights. All liberties are relative. Where a match applied to the candles on a birthday cake can kindle a warm glow in a convivial gathering, the same match struck in an arsenal could trigger a tragic explosion. The right to extend my fist ends where someone else's nose begins. The civility in human society depends to a large degree on the respect that different elements accord each other.

Nasrin's novel Lajja (Shame), graphically depicts the tragic plight of a Hindu family victimized by Muslims in Bangladesh. The book was published soon after the widespread Hindu-Muslim killings in India that followed the demolition of India's Ayodhya mosque by Hindu militants led by the extremist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Although Nasrin's writings are not acclaimed for their conventional literary merit, Lajja attracted the patronage of the BJP in India. But Bangladeshis feared the book would rekindle the communal hatreds that have taken such a fearsome toll in both countries.

Nasrin's other themes have included a call for polyandry and attacks on Islamic provisions regarding marriage and the rights of women. Critics charged that instead of staying with the social injustices heaped on women, she grappled with religious issues in an ill-informed manner, and that her writings often strayed into the realm of pornography. For all this she had faced mild social censure.

What kindled the real wrath of the Muslim clergy, however, was the report in an Indian newspaper that, in an interview, she had called for a "revision of the Qur'an." She quickly denied the report, pointing out that no Muslim could make such a suggestion, and she was right. Muslims believe the Qur'an is the record of a long series of Divine revelations to the Prophet Muhammad through the angel Gabriel (Jibril).

While the Qur'an may be open to varying interpretations, the actual text is regarded by Muslims as the immutable word of Allah, where not a syllable may be changed. To suggest a revision would involve heresy. A change in the shariah, Islamic law, is what Nasrin claims she proposed to the Indian interviewer. Her denials, however, never seemed to catch up with the reports that inflamed the Bangladeshi majority.

The Qur'an is the immutable word of Allah.

There are other aspects to the shock administered by Taslima Nasrin to a conservative Muslim society wherein women are expected to conduct themselves modestly and with a high degree of moral dignity. Discussions of explicit sex by a woman are treated as an affront to the entire society. Ironically, both the prime minister of Bangladesh and the leader of the opposition party are women, indicating more willingness by Bangladeshis to put women into the top leadership roles than is evident to date in the United States.

Rightly or wrongly, politically fragile governments fear individual acts that can cause social turmoil and threaten their stability. The arrest warrant issued against Taslima Nasrin, according to Bangladeshi Ambassador to the U.S. Humayun Kabir, is both to provide her protective custody and also to make her defend herself in a court of law against the charge of disrupting law and order through her writings and statements. The government of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia warned she would take criminal action against those who threaten physical harm to Nasrin.

Although both writers felt it necessary to go into hiding, there are as many differences as similarities between the cases of Taslima Nasrin and Salman Rushdie, with whom she is being compared. Rushdie was a recognized literary figure at the time of his controversial writing. Nasrin was an unknown, and as attention has focused upon her writing, accusations of plagiarism have been leveled against her.

Secondly, in Rushdie's case, Iranian officialdom issued a fatwa calling for his death and put a price on his head. In Nasrin's case, the state has undertaken to protect her and to prosecute those calling for her death.

Now that she has responded to the orders of the court and posted bail, the Bangladesh government must provide for her physical security, safeguard her civil rights and guarantee her a fair trial if she returns to Bangladesh to defend herself. How well it meets those obligations may make a more accurate and powerful statement about her country's legal and social structures than anything in Taslima Nasrin's writings.

India—The Flip Side

The 1994 Human Development report of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) informs that the Indian subcontinent, whose three major countries are India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, has surpassed sub-Saharan Africa in poverty but remains among the world's largest importers of arms. John Bussey wrote in the June 6 Wall Street Journal, "After all the hoopla about India's flowering capitalist economy—a nation of 890 million casting socialism aside—the country's economic growth numbers for last year arrived with a seeming whimper: a 3.8 percent expansion...a third of what China achieved last year."

What is more disconcerting is that the international and domestic emphasis on India's "liberalization" and "privatization" focuses on India's large middle class, estimated at 200 to 250 million people. However, the remaining 600 million Indians seem outside the frame of reference.

Since June of 1991 the government of Prime Minister Narasimha Rao has been restructuring India's economy to entice foreign investors. The World Bank, the principal international donor agency, nevertheless complains in its annual report that liberalization is largely confined to a few central government ministries. The Bank has asked India to extend the process to other national departments, and push it to the state level as well. The World Bank also has expressed unhappiness at India's failure to cut its budget deficit from the present 7.3 percent to a promised 4.7 percent of the GDP.

Commenting on steps taken by New Delhi to appease Washington and to entice the American multinationals, Ranjan Roy of the Associated Press reported on June 18 from Delhi: "Critics accuse Mr. Rao of promoting liberalization to the exclusion of the poor, for whom a 15-cent Coke costs a third of a day's wages. Prices of rice and wheat rose 20 percent in a year. In one week, the price of sugar skyrocketed from 13 cents to 27 cents a pound when the government lifted controls. Vegetables, meat and fish are about 25 percent more expensive, but computers, TV sets, washing machines, shampoo and cosmetics are cheaper than a year ago...Inflation stands at 12 percent...40 percent of India's people cannot afford an adequate meal."

Most current Indian leaders were advocates of socialism until very recently. Their apparent change of heart does not mean all are convinced that liberalization is unstoppable. The Wall Street Journal's Bussey reports that an opposition leader, lecturing to some visiting U.S. investors, cautioned: "Just because Karl Marx has been proven to be wrong doesn't mean that Milton Friedman has proven to be right."

In fact, liberalization in India has yet to break out of the socialistic woods. Entrenched bureaucracy and rigid labor laws still hold back private enterprise. Corruption has permeated every layer from the top to the very bottom of the socio-economic spectrum. According to Indian reports, only 1 percent of the population pays taxes.

Even if the 200-250 million middle class figure is valid, increasing inflation and a widening gap between that group and the vast majority of the population threaten to destabilize the system at any time. It is in these human terms that the extremely high cost of India's nuclear weapons and missile programs, and the economic and political costs of letting the Kashmir dispute remain unresolved need to be examined. Mere proclamations of Ahimsa (peace) and declarations of democracy will not solve basic economic and social problems suffered by the vast majority of India's people.

M.M. Ali is a professor at the University of the District of Columbia.