Taslima Nasreen returns to Kolkata after 19 years, calls it an emotional homecoming

Nearly 19 years after she was forced to leave Kolkata amid violent protests over her writings, exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen returned to the city on Friday, describing the visit as an emotional homecoming to a place she has long considered her own.

Her return comes ahead of a literary event on Saturday that has also acquired political significance under West Bengal's new BJP government.

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Arriving at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport, Nasreen greeted those waiting to receive her with folded hands and said, "I am feeling very good to be back."

This marks her first visit to Kolkata since November 2007, when escalating protests over her work forced her to leave the city that had become her refuge after fleeing Bangladesh.

Nasreen is scheduled to make her first public appearance on Saturday at an anti-fundamentalism literary programme at Rabindra Sadan, where she is expected to recite poetry. Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari and noted author Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay are among those expected to attend.

Although conceived as a literary gathering, the event has assumed wider political significance, coming months after the BJP formed the government in West Bengal and amid renewed debates around freedom of expression, secularism and the state's handling of religious sensitivities.

Ahead of her visit, Nasreen had described her return as far more than a journey across a border.

"I feel as though I am returning to my own country. Bengal has never been divided in my heart by a border or a barbed-wire fence. The door to the eastern part of Bengal remains closed to me, so for now, this part of Bengal is my home," she had told PTI.

She said she was returning "with joy, but also with pain", recalling that Kolkata had given her a home, friends, readers and a deep sense of belonging before circumstances forced her to leave.

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Calling the visit symbolic, Nasreen said it represented the return of a voice that religious fundamentalists had once tried to silence.

She also thanked the organisers and the West Bengal government for facilitating her visit and providing security, while maintaining that a writer's freedom must remain a fundamental right regardless of the ideology of the government in power.

Nasreen's return revives one of the most contentious chapters in West Bengal's recent political and cultural history.

After fleeing Bangladesh in 1994 following death threats over her novel Lajja, she settled in Kolkata in 2004, embracing the Bengali-speaking city as her cultural home in exile.

Her stay came to an abrupt end in November 2007 after violent protests erupted over portions of her memoir Dwikhandito, which had already been banned by the then Left Front government in 2003 for allegedly hurting the sentiments of sections of the Muslim community.

As the protests intensified and the Army was deployed in parts of Kolkata to restore order, the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee-led Left Front government asked Nasreen to leave the city.

She was first shifted to Jaipur and later to Delhi before eventually moving abroad. Despite that, she repeatedly expressed a desire to return to Kolkata, even if only to attend literary events.

For nearly two decades, those aspirations remained unfulfilled despite periodic appeals from writers, civil society groups and political leaders.

The issue gained fresh attention last year when BJP Rajya Sabha MP and current West Bengal BJP president Samik Bhattacharya urged the Centre in Parliament to facilitate her return, describing Nasreen as a fearless voice against Islamist fundamentalism.

The BJP has since projected her homecoming as a correction of what it calls the failure of successive Left Front and Trinamool Congress governments to defend free speech in the face of religious pressure.

The previous governments, however, maintained that the decision to ask Nasreen to leave Kolkata in 2007 was driven by concerns over maintaining public order amid escalating communal tensions.

Organisers have maintained that Saturday's programme is intended to celebrate Nasreen's lifelong opposition to religious fundamentalism and reaffirm the principle of freedom of expression, rather than serve as a political platform.

Even so, nearly two decades after leaving the city that became both her sanctuary and exile, Taslima Nasreen's return carries significance well beyond literature, reflecting the changing political discourse around secularism, free speech and identity in West Bengal.