Written by: Praskanva Sinharay4 min readAug 2, 2026 12:31 PM IST First published on: Aug 2, 2026 at 12:31 PM ISTTaslima Nasrin’s visit to Calcutta is a significant event for Bengal politics. She has been living in exile for more than three decades now since Islamic fundamentalist groups in Bangladesh targeted her for her critical writings on religious texts and political fundamentalism, and issued fatwas after the publication of her acclaimed novel Lajja (1993). Nasrin acquired Swedish citizenship after Bangladesh revoked her passport, and kept on shuttling between countries. But she constantly expressed her wish to stay in India, closer to her homeland. Nasrin has been, for her stay in India, on a temporary and extendable basis, initially in 2004 and then after 2012, repeatedly attacked by right-wing Islamist groups and Hindu nationalist forces.Her return to the city she identifies as “home away from home” after 19 years, to speak at a public meeting, is not only important for the ruling BJP government in West Bengal, but it also raises larger questions about religious majoritarianism.AdvertisementNasrin had to leave West Bengal in 2007 when the Left Front was in power. The inability of the secular Left government to ensure her safety and maintain law and order in the face of agitations by religious fundamentalists was widely criticised. The subsequent TMC government also could not bring her back to the city. Both the Left and the TMC governments were accused of minority appeasement and giving in to the assertions of Islamic fundamentalists by failing to accommodate the writer-activist in a state with a significant Muslim population. Nasrin’s return after almost two decades is now an opportunity for the Hindu nationalist BJP to portray itself as capable of leading a strong government that can ensure the security of the feminist writer-in-exile from Islamic fundamentalist forces. This is evident from the chain of events surrounding her arrival in the city. Billboards were put up in the streets, and people blew conch shells to welcome the writer at the airport; her visit was reported by some media houses as “ghar wapsi” (homecoming), and the BJP MLA Sourav Sikdar called her visit a testament to the party’s electoral slogan “bhoy out, bhorosa in” (fear out, confidence in). The expected presence of the chief minister, Suvendu Adhikari, at Nasrin’s public meeting at Rabindra Sadan further points to the likely use of this visit by the BJP leadership as a double-edged sword.Also Read | Tavleen Singh writes: No lessons from cockroachesOn the one hand, it is a chance for the BJP government to craft a liberal image by comparing itself with its predecessors, whom it accuses of minority appeasement. On the other, the BJP is likely to cite the case of Nasrin, as it has done before, as an example to essentialise and vilify Muslim culture and politics as anti-women and regressive.Nasrin’s visit to Calcutta and the celebrations around it thus present an old and known paradox. A writer who has been a victim of religious majoritarianism in her homeland finds a safe haven in a country also witnessing majoritarian rule. This is therefore a moment to revisit Nasrin’s life and writings, which foreground larger questions about democracy and freedom of speech, her idea of “secular humanism” and notions of home and exile. Nasrin has been an ardent advocate against religious majoritarianism who unequivocally criticised all religious texts, labelling them as “out of place and out of time”. Humanism, she has argued, should be the “new faith”. Her visit to Calcutta is not a story of party politics, of bhoy and bharosa, but the tale of the return of a writer-activist who stood against religious fundamentalism and majoritarian politics.AdvertisementThe writer is a political scientist based in New Delhi