Lajja doesn’t abuse Islam, says Taslima

New Delhi: Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasrin says she did not criticise the Islam in her controversial novel Lajja and the fatwa against her is because of her criticism of the religion in many of her other books.

“Many believe that I have criticised Islam in Lajja and the Muslim fundamentalists of Bangladesh have issued a fatwa against me - both untrue. I have not criticised Islam in Lajja and the fatwa is not because of Lajja. It is because I have criticised the Islam in many of my other books,” she said.

“Lajja can be seen as a symbol of protest. It is a protest against the violence, hatred and killings that are going on all over the world in the name of religion,” Ms Nasrin writes in the preface of a new English translation of Lajja brought out as a special 20th anniversary edition.

The fresh edition, translated by activist-writer Anchita Ghatak, is published by Penguin Books India.

52-year-old Ms Nasrin said Lajja will remain relevant as long as the incidents described in it continue to happen and as long as there is conflict between people of one religion and another.

According to her, Lajja does not speak of religion or hate, it speaks of humanity and love.

A savage indictment of religious extremism, Lajja, written in 1993, was banned in Bangladesh, but became a bestseller in the rest of the world.

It tells the story of the Dattas, who have lived in Bangladesh all their lives. Despite being members of a small Hindu community, they refuse to leave their country. But their world begins to fall apart after the demolition of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya on December 6, 1992.

Ms Nasrin had to leave Bangladesh in 1994 in the wake of death threat by fundamentalist groups for her alleged anti-Islamic views.