Lajja: Shame by Taslima Nasrin

Lajja: Shame is the story of the Dutta family; Suranjan Dutta, a Bengali Hindu, lives in Dhaka with his father Sudhamoy, mother Kironmoyee, and sister Nilanjana. To Suranjan, Bangladesh is his motherland; he was born here, got educated here, and made friends here. In spite of millions of Hindus from Bangladesh going away to India in search of peace and safety, the Duttas are unwavering in their decision to stay back regardless of all the odds. They stayed here through the partition in 1947, through the Independence struggle in 1971, and even when Bangladesh became an Islamic state in 1978.

When the Babri Masjid is demolished in Ayodhya, India on 6th December, 1992, the ripples are felt in Bangladesh too. This incident takes a communal turn due to the vested interests of the communalists and religious extremists, and leads to mass genocide and religious persecution of the Hindus, and in turn, causing a mass exodus of Hindus into India. But again, the men of the Dutta household decide to stay back despite the persistent requests of the women. Will they stay safe this time? Or will they become prey to the communal elements? Will their motherland treat them as her children? Or will she drink their blood?

Though ‘Lajja’ is the story of the Duttas, they are reverted to the background, and the newspaper reports and eye-witness accounts, with facts and figures about the number of people killed, temples destroyed, properties looted and women raped, becomes the theme of the book. This inter-mingling of numerous statistical data with a fictional plot is done with such subtleness and so seamlessly that it becomes a part of the story. The data is not just parroted in the book; it comes as a dialogue from anxious Bengalis living in fear of their lives, and this is what adds life to these numbers; it makes you realise the enormity and graveness of the situation, and sympathise with the victims.


In the introduction to this fiercely felt political novel of Bangladesh (which was a black market bestseller in India), Nasrin cites the opinions of certain friendly Bengali critics who said that it was ""no work of literature. . . an important testament [that] still fell short."" American readers may agree. Set in Bangladesh in 1992, just after the destruction of the 450-year-old Babri Mosque, in India, by Hindu fundamentalists, Nasrin's fevered plot revolves around a Hindu family and its struggles in the face of retaliatory Muslim fanaticism. The main characters are an idealistic veteran of the Liberation War, his wife and his children, a disaffected intellectual son and a 21-year-old daughter who is abducted by Muslim street toughs. But the story hardly belongs to these imaginary characters, since Nasrin peppers their tribulations with her own polemics and reportage and, in the guise of conversation, introduces page-long litanies of the horrors suffered by real-life Bengali Hindus: thousands of women raped, countless property destroyed, children burned alive. Herself a Muslim, Nasrin has been called an agent for Indian Hindu fundamentalists and has been charged with ""hurting the religious feelings of the people."" Since a fatwa was issued against her, she has gone into hiding in Europe. The criminal cases against her are still pending in Bangladesh. 

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