February 16, 2008

As we go to press the news has come that exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen’s resident permit to stay on in this country is being extended beyond February 17, the day it is supposed to expire. However, she continues to remain interned at the ‘safe’ place she is being kept in the Capital—neither can she meet any of her friends and acquaintances nor can the latter meet her: the condition in which she is being forced to stay is worse than house arrest. As is well known by now, the Union (…)

Raj Thackeray’s campaign against people whose forefathers arrived in Mumbai from Bihar or Uttar Pradesh has its roots in his bid to win the battle of the Shiv Sena’s leadership from his cousin Uddhav Thackeray. Since Bal Thackeray made Uddhav his successor, he has refused to ally himself with the hate propaganda of his nephew, Raj. Those leaders of these States who have been touched on the raw, should have shown forbearance and patience. Whatever that be, this episode exposes the desire to (…)

Although I was not born an Indian, there is very little about my appearance, my tastes, my habits and my traditions to distinguish me from a daughter of the soil. My father was born before Partition; the strange history of this subcontinent made him a citizen of three states, his daughter a national of two. In a village in what was then East Bengal, there once lived a poor farmer by the name of Haradhan Sarkar, one of whose sons, Komol, driven to fury by zamindari oppression, converted to (…)