Writer Taslima Nasrin. File
| Photo Credit: NIRMAL HARINDRAN
Writer and activist Taslima Nasrin is set to return to Kolkata after 20 years. She posted on her social media on Tuesday (July 14, 2026) that she is set to attend an event in Rabindra Sadan in the heart of the city on August 1.
The Bangladeshi writer posted: “Back in a free Bengal after 20 years.”
“I spoke about her return to Bengal in the Rajya Sabha. Why will her voice be snubbed? She has spoken about atrocities against Hindus in Bangladesh and wrote the book Lajja, this book was banned… But we welcome her,” Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) State president Samik Bhattacharya said.
Similar sentiments were echoed by State Minister Agnimitra Paul, who said this return was a matter of pride and joy for the women. “The Left Front government did politics over Muslims but did not give her protection… In the Trinamool Congress regime, too, no one got justice. Under Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari’s leadership, Taslima Nasrin is finally coming to Bengal,” Ms. Paul added.
In May 2025, the Centre had stated that Ms. Nasrin was free to move anywhere in India. The author had previously shown interest in coming back to Kolkata on multiple occasions, but her movements were mostly restricted to Delhi.
The Bangladeshi author has been staying in India since 2004 and has been in exile since the 1990s. The writer had faced protests in her own country, Bangladesh, after facing threats from Islamist groups for her outspoken writings on women’s rights and religious extremism. She has, on several occasions, been vocal about the religious extremism of Islam.
She had settled in Kolkata in 2007 and called it her home before violent protests erupted there against her, and she had to leave the city during the Left Front regime. She had said she was forced to leave West Bengal under the pretext that her presence might provoke fundamentalists to engineer riots.
Ms. Nasrin had earlier accused the previous Trinamool Congress-led government of ‘forcefully’ removing her play Lajja from the State’s theatre festivals. Lajja is one of the most popular and controversial books by the author, which has evoked mixed reviews across the globe.
Published – July 14, 2026 05:53 pm IST
