After 19 Years, Taslima Nasrin To Be Back In Kolkata; BJP Calls It 'New Bengal'
After 19 Years, Taslima Nasrin To Be Back In Kolkata; BJP Calls It 'New Bengal' Reported By, Last Updated: July 15, 2026, 09:43 IST Exiled
After 19 Years, Taslima Nasrin To Be Back In Kolkata; BJP Calls It 'New Bengal' Reported By, Last Updated: July 15, 2026, 09:43 IST Exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasrin returns to Kolkata after 19 years for an anti-fundamentalism literary event, sparking political debate. Exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen. (News18). Exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasrin is set to return to Kolkata next month for the first time in nearly 19 years to attend an anti-fundamentalism literary event in a visit that has quickly acquired political significance. While organisers describe it as a celebration of free expression and secular values, the BJP has projected it as a symbol of what it calls a “new Bengal" after years of political compromise over religious sensitivities. Nasrin announced on social media that she would be in Kolkata on August 1 to participate in an anti-fundamentalism event at Rabindra Sadan, where she is expected to recite poetry. The programme is being organised by a group of secular and anti-fundamentalist organisations and comes months after the BJP assumed office in West Bengal, amid renewed debate over freedom of expression and religious fundamentalism. “It will basically be an event to celebrate her coming to the city after 20 years. She was forced to leave Kolkata on November 21, 2007, after the then Left Front government bowed before fundamentalist forces. This is a new Bengal, and we have decided to honour her. Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari himself will be present at the event," organiser Mohit Roy of Paschimbangar Jonno told PTI.
Roy, however, said there had been no discussion on whether the event could pave the way for Nasrin’s permanent return to Kolkata. BJP Sees Symbolism In Return For the BJP, Nasrin’s visit represents more than the return of a celebrated writer. A senior state BJP leader said successive Left Front and Trinamool Congress governments had “chosen political expediency over free speech" by refusing to facilitate her return despite repeated requests to attend literary events and book fairs. The issue resurfaced in Parliament last year when BJP Rajya Sabha MP and current West Bengal BJP president Samik Bhattacharya urged the Centre to facilitate Nasrin’s return, describing her as one of the few voices to consistently challenge Islamist fundamentalism in Bangladesh. At the time, Nasrin had said she did not want to be “kicked around like a football" by changing political dispensations. “I don’t want to get kicked around anymore. Instead, it would please me if the governments allow me to travel to Kolkata to attend literature festivals and book fairs," she had told PTI. Why Nasrin Left Kolkata Nasrin rose to international prominence in the early 1990s through her feminist writings and criticism of religious orthodoxy. She fled Bangladesh in 1994 after multiple fatwas were issued against her, following the publication of her novel Lajja, which chronicled the persecution of Hindus in post-Babri Bangladesh. After spending years in Europe and the United States, she moved to India in 2004 and settled in Kolkata, describing the Bengali-speaking city as the closest cultural refuge she had found in exile.
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