Analysis Of Taslima Nasrin

The conventional perception of gender roles in a socio-cultural setup cast men as rational, strong, protective, and decisive beings thereby casting women as emotional (irrational), weak, nurturing, and submissive . Therefore, women are expected to fit themselves in this frame, where in every sense they are inferior to men and lose their personal identity. Thus, women remain as mere object or property to men. Taslima Nasrin, on account of her personal experience of childhood sexual abuse and the deteriorating status of women in Bangladesh, contributes considerably to the feminist thought. In most of her writings, Nasrin gives evidences of her feminist leanings as she delineates situations pertaining to subjugation and marginalization of women …show more content…
She started her career as a medical practitioner and examined many ladies who had suffered physical or sexual abuse. All these experiences turned her into a completely different human being. She quit her full time job when she felt it was time to express her anguish towards the society using her writings. She published half a dozen poems, prose, essays and novels in the early nineties with focus on the oppression of women by patriarchal society. However, her initial works were very generic in nature. Taslima's life was peaceful till Lajja (Lajja), her novel in which she writes about the prosecution of a Hindu family in Bangladesh by Muslims.After this novel was published in 1993,Taslima's life got into trouble as various Muslim activists and communities wanted her dead. Taslima’s Book provides factual information about the religious intolerance that prevailed in her country amongst her Hindu- Muslim brothers. Furthermore, in Lajja, Nasrin shows how women are doubly jeopardized—on the basis of sex and on the basis of nationality which is identical with religion. In Bangladesh, only Islam is synonymous with humaneness as only Muslims are considered as human beings. They are free to pray in the mosque, do what they want for their religion, wear Burkha, have a beard, wear a skull cap on their head, and to follow the rituals of their religion. Hindus are like their …show more content…
In an attempt to retaliate the Babri Masjid demolition in India, women’s bodies are defiled and desecrated as they become extensions of the geo-political entity called India for religious fundamentalists in Bangladesh. Lajja, depicts certain men ravishing young Hindu girls for their pleasure and vilifying concerned Hindu families. The abduction of Maya as a child of six illustrates the same. This incident terribly traumatizes the girl and has such a negative effect on the psyche of the girl child that she is not able to behave normally for two months. She would sleep fitfully and would wake up abruptly in the middle of the night. The family is never safe thereafter as they keep receiving threatening through anonymous extortion letters that aimed at kidnapping Maya again. However, when Maya grew up as a young girl of 19, the ominous day of 11th December 1992 came. A group of seven hooligans entered the house of Sudhamoy who had recently suffered paralysis, and began to break the goods of the house. They were all about twenty-one years old. Two of them wore caps, pajamas and Kurtas. Sudhamoy and Kiranmoye tried their best but they could do nothing against seven hooligans who very quickly took Maya away. Maya was crying for help but nobody came forward to help her because she was a Hindu girl and the abductors were Muslims. She only screamed her