Book Review

by NIRA

FROM ISSUE # 102 (June 2004) | IN THIS ISSUE
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A book that all Nepalis today can relate to – Taslima Nasrin's Lajja. This controversial novel was banned in Bangladesh in 1993, and exposes the consequences of religious fanaticism and man's inhumanity during blind rage.

The novel focuses on the effect that the demolition of the Babri Masjid by Hindu fundamentalists in India in 1992 had on one Hindu family in Bangladesh. Hindus are considered a minority in Bangladesh, and through the course of the novel, the reader learns that they are also slotted into a "second-class citizen" niche. The suffering of this family is a microcosm of the torture inflicted upon Hindus by Muslim fanatics all over Bagladesh. No wonder this novel was banned in the country!
 The protagonists in the novel are trapped in a whirlwind of uncertainty, insecurity and utter hopelessness. The religious uproar that the destruction of the Babri Masjid caused in Bangladesh, suddenly leaves the family isolated as all their Hindu friends migrate to India and their Muslim friends desert them fearing censorship from the community. As reports of looting, burning and raping of other Hindus by Muslim fundamentalists reach the family, each member starts to mentally fall apart in a particular own way.

There are several instances in the novel when Nasrin chooses to give the readers actual facts and statistics about the destruction in Bagladesh following the Babri Masjid incident. Personally, I found these distracting and am guilty of skipping through most of them. However, the intense psychological affects on the family that Nasrin so powerfully brings out overshadows this drawback of the novel.

By showing the readers how a simple, optimistic and idealistic family that believes that their motherland will not let them down, is cheated out of life because of their religious affiliation, Nasrin disturbingly succeeds in provoking the readers to question their own assumptions about religion in particular and communal affinity in general. More importantly, because Lajja exposes the insanity of violence for whatever cause, it is not only victims of religious extremism that identify with it. After reading Lajja, all the statistics in newspapers about Maoist attacks in villages in Nepal, come alive. Suddenly, the statistics seemed more than just numbers; they were symbols of destroyed life.

In the preface, Taslima Nasrin writes: "Lajja is a documentation of our collective defeat" to live up to the sacrifices made during the fight for independence. The riots that are alarmingly burgeoning in Nepal are verging on a similar "collective defeat". Read Lajja to understand what I mean!