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While speaking about a similar pattern between Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan’s first governor-general, and Muhammad Yunus, the current head of Bangladesh’s interim government, Taslima drew a startling parallel
Award-winning exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasrin. (Image via X/@taslimanasreen)
Exile has a strange way of levelling power and authority. In a classic instance of a twist-in-tale that even history might hesitate to script, two women, once positioned as adversaries, now walk the same foreign streets, thousands of miles away from their people and home. In silence, they both yearn to return to their homeland, Bangladesh. One, Taslima Nasrin, was exiled by the Bangladesh government three decades ago. The other, Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s ousted prime minister, joined her fate three decades later. Both now live in Delhi. But only one had the power to banish the other and used it.
In an exclusive interview with News18 while visiting Odisha, Taslima Nasrin reflects on this unsettling symmetry and the possibility of “poetic justice”. “Hasina and I live in the same city now,” she said. “I’ve heard she sometimes goes out for walks. I often wonder, if I ever run into her in and around Lodhi Garden or somewhere else, what would I say? I think I’ll ask her, how does it feel to lose one’s home?” Taslima said on the sidelines of the Puri Literary Festival 2025, organised by the ministry of culture in collaboration with the Odisha government.
Taslima was exiled twice by two consecutive governments: first by Khaleda Zia’s in 1994 and again by Sheikh Hasina’s in 1999, and her passport was never renewed.
Exile as the ‘leveller’
For Taslima, it is not a rhetorical question. In 1994, she was branded a “threat” for writing against religious fundamentalism, misogyny, and societal hypocrisy, and the government forced her to leave the country. In 1999, when she entered her country to visit her ailing mother, Sheikh Hasina’s government charged her with “blasphemy” yet again for denouncing fanaticism and for her explicit content about patriarchal society. Hasina repeated what her predecessor did. Taslima’s books were banned by the government, first under Khaleda Zia’s regime in 1994 and later in 1999 under Hasina’s.
Clerics declared multiple fatwas against her, and she faced death threats. Multiple cases were lodged against her, and Hasina’s government imposed conditions for her bail to be granted. She was asked to leave the country.
The state, under Hasina, barred her return and never renewed her passport. “They didn’t just expel me,” she said. “They made sure I had no soil to stand on. I was hounded for speaking the truth.”
And yet, when Hasina herself was ousted in August 2024 and fled to India amid the rise of the Muhammad Yunus-led interim regime, Taslima did not rejoice. Instead, she condemned the brutal attacks on Awami League workers and minority communities, especially the Hindus, across the country. She also spoke out when an artist distorted Hasina’s image.
“Because I have never fought people —I’ve fought an ideology. Through my craft, my literature, I spoke against fanatics, misogynists, and people who discriminate. I stand where I always have, and that stand is against ‘jihadis’, against fanaticism, against hate, against injustice,” said Taslima.
History repeats in Western suits
While speaking about a similar pattern between Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan’s first governor-general, and Muhammad Yunus, the current head of the interim government (as chief adviser), she drew a startling parallel few dare to voice.
“Both were educated in the West—Jinnah in London, Yunus in the US. Both seemed detached from religious orthodoxy in their earlier lives. But when power was at stake, both surrendered to the same toxic and fanatic forces. Both unleashed a storm of fundamentalism that they neither understood nor controlled,” she said.
For Taslima, the pattern has been painfully and eerily familiar: the targeting of minorities, the crushing of dissent, and the normalisation of fear. “It’s always dressed up differently—suits, degrees, polite speeches—but the result appears to be the same,” she added. Now, as Sheikh Hasina navigates her own exile, the echoes are hard to ignore. “People change. Power fades. But the consequences of injustice endure,” the author said. However, through it all, the fearless Taslima Nasrin remains the same: sharp, defiant, and rooted in her truth.
- Location :
Puri, India, India
