Taslima gifts body to Kolkata NGO

Controversial author from Bangladesh, Taslima Nasreen, today pledged to donate her body to Kolkata-based NGO Gana Darpan. However, her decis...

Controversial author from Bangladesh, Taslima Nasreen, today pledged to donate her body to Kolkata-based NGO Gana Darpan. However, her decision may kick up another controversy and end in legal complications as she had already donated her body earlier to an organisation, Sandhani, in Bangladesh in the 1980s before she went into exile.

Taslima’s latest move has raised questions about her intentions, and whether it is linked to her seeking Indian citizenship. However, the author denied any such intention, saying: ‘‘I have sought an Indian citizenship from the government of this country. However, my nationality has nothing to do with my donating the body. Anyone can volunteer to donate one’s body anywhere in the world…The two things are completely unrelated. My intention in donating my body is to further the cause of science and to set an example for the common people.’’ Taslima signed on the dotted line this evening. ‘‘I consider this (body donation) a very humbling act. And I have always stood for anything that means contributing to society in any way,’’ she said.

The Ministry of Home Affairs has also said that pledging to donate one’s body is not a valid criterion for granting citizenship.

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Asked why she chose an organisation based in Kolkata and not one in Norway of which she is a citizen, she said that donations like this are needed more here. Taslima went on to say, ‘‘Even if at some remote point of time I am allowed to enter my motherland, my body will still be donated here in Kolkata.’’

Speaking to The Indian Express, the writer admitted that she had donated her body earlier in her native country. But she feels that Bangladeshis will not be keen on taking her body now. ‘‘They (the people of Bangladesh) will not let me live there, so how can they be interested in my corpse,’’ she asked.

Commenting on the matter, Ashok Bakshi, public prosecutor in the city sessions court, said, ‘‘The law is silent on this issue and by virtue of that, the act might not be an illegal one. But it is most certainly an inconsistency to pledge the body in two separate countries.’’

He maintained that in such a case, eventually it is the family members of the deceased who would have the last say. ‘‘If the surviving family members of the deceased are against the donation, then her wish cannot be fulfilled because in that case Indian law protects the right of the family members over their claim to a body.’’

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