After a 20-year exile, writer and activist Taslima Nasrin is scheduled to return to Kolkata. On Tuesday, July 14, 2026, she announced on social media that she would be attending an event on August 1 in the city’s center at Rabindra Sadan. “Back in a free Bengal after 20 years,” the Bangladeshi author wrote on social media.
“In the Rajya Sabha, I discussed her repatriation to Bengal. Why is her voice going to be ignored? She wrote the book Lajja, which was outlawed, and warned of the horrors committed against Hindus in Bangladesh. However, we welcome her,” stated Samik Bhattacharya, the state president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
State Minister Agnimitra Paul expressed similar feelings, stating that the women were happy and proud of their return. “She was not protected by the Left Front government, which pursued politics above Muslims… No one received justice under the Trinamool Congress rule either. Taslima Nasrin is finally visiting Bengal under the direction of Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, Ms. Paul continued. The Center had declared in May 2025 that Ms. Nasrin might relocate anywhere in India. Although the author had previously expressed interest in returning to Kolkata on several occasions, her travels were primarily limited to Delhi.
After living in exile since the 1990s, the Bangladeshi novelist has been residing in India since 2004. After receiving threats from Islamist organizations for her vocal writings on women’s rights and religious fanaticism, the author encountered demonstrations in her native Bangladesh. She has spoken out against Islam’s religious fanaticism on multiple occasions. Before violent protests against her broke out in Kolkata in 2007, she had made the city her home. During the Left Front rule, she was forced to leave the city. She had claimed that she was compelled to leave West Bengal on the grounds that her presence may incite rioting by Islamists.
Ms. Nasrin had previously claimed that her play Lajja had been “forcibly” removed from the State’s theater festivals by the previous Trinamool Congress-led administration. One of the author’s most well-known and contentious works, Lajja, has received mixed reviews worldwide.