Taslima Nasreen

Kill Taslima and take money. A new fatwa from the clerics of Bengal, touted as the most secular state of India! They have also sought her ouster from this state within one month, otherwise they would murder her. Taslima has now been living in Kolkata on a visa that gets renewed for six months every now and then. Which itself is a precarious living of sort.

I'm no fan of Taslima, but I have some regard for her. I loved her 'Lajja'- that wonderful novella about the atrocities on minorities in Bangladesh soon after Babri Mosque demolition. It takes a lot of courage and humanity to write such a book. She has plenty of these things, but she seems to have an agenda against the males in most of her writings, which is silly. I appreciate her rant against religions, but she never seems to get her reading of the society right, for whatever reasons.

But is it right for the clerices to announce fatwa for her?. Here is Asghar Ali Engineer, a Mumbai-based Islamic leader, in an article in The Times Of India":

I disagree with Taslima's views and think she is ignorant of Quranic teachings. But holding that view does not give anyone the right to violently attack her or incite people to attack her.