Nasrin said the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal has suppressed the voices of artists and writers by cancelling her play ‘Lajja’ (Shame), adapted from her novel, at two theatre festivals.
Taslima Nasrin has alleged that the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal has silenced the voices of artists and writers by cancelling her play ‘Lajja’ (shame) at two theatre festivals adapted from her novel.
She claimed that the police interfered in two theatre festivals, the Guarding Naty Utsav in North 24 Parganas and the Panda Naty Utsav in Hooghly, forcing organizers to cancel the play from their schedule, citing fears of communal riots, news agency PTI reported.
“While the play schedule had been announced two months back, all of a sudden, the police convinced the organizers to omit ‘Lajja’ from the list. Remember, a theatre group had staged the same play three times in Delhi before a packed auditorium,” she wrote in a Facebook post on Monday.
Nasrin criticized the West Bengal administration for explaining that the play would lead to violence. I was forced to leave West Bengal with the apprehension that my presence would provoke fundamentalists to engineer riots. I can’t fathom why no action is taken against the rioters and the voices of free expression by writers are being muzzled,” she said.
