Women have hopes where state is secular: Taslima Nasrin

Bhubaneswar, Sep 23 (PTI) Exiled Bangladeshi author and feminist activist Taslima Nasrin on Tuesday said women have hopes where the state is secular and there is a need to separate the state from religion if true equality is to be achieved for females.

Asserting that feminism is not a Western culture, Nasrin said she was influenced by her own experience.

“Where the state is secular, women have hope,” the writer said at a function in Bhubaneswar.

She said the conflict in the world is between two ideas - secularism and fundamentalism; rational, logical thinking and irrational, blind faith.

"I still believe that change is possible if we are brave enough to ask questions,” Nasrin said.

The author of books like ‘Lajja’ and ‘Dwikhandita’, maintained that rigid interpretations of religion were anti-woman.

Religious influence in governance had a negative impact on women across all communities, she said while delivering the ‘Siksha O Anusandhan’ Lecture at the SOA Deemed to be University.

Nasrin said, “Laws are to be based on equality and human rights, not religious doctrines which restrict their rights.” Nasrin, also a gynecologist, has lived in exile since 1994 in Sweden, the US and India following allegations of blasphemy in her literary works.

She said she had been continuing her struggle for the restoration of human dignity and equality for women and would not retreat.

“Bangladesh expelled me; West Bengal, where I had lived, expelled me. I have no home. I have no country. But I believe in freedom of expression and feel women must resist religious tyranny,” she said.

Noting that she was born in a secular-minded Muslim family in Mymensingh in Bangladesh, Nasrin said her father, a doctor, encouraged her to study and become a physician.

“I grew up in a home rich with literature and music. But when I reached the age of 12, I realised that I was an atheist and questioned the religious texts as I found women being oppressed through religion, culture, customs and tradition,” she said.

“It is every woman’s story. We are trapped in the same cage. We didn’t call it oppression, we called it tradition,” the author said, adding there was a need to unite to protect the rights of women.

Noting that she began resisting certain things, Nasrin said, “I wrote about what I saw, where I lived, and what I believed without compromise.” The author said she protested injustice and demanded equality, freedom and truth through her writings, which became weapons against oppression.

As a result, she noted, people demonstrated on the streets and demanded her death.

“The state did not protect me and I have since lived in exile for 31 years... I am a woman without a country,” Nasrin said. PTI AAM NN