Her six-day visit to Kolkata was no less a political phenomenon than the violence that forced her out 19 years ago. Reciprocating the gesture, she said at the end of her visit on Wednesday that she would visit Kolkata “whenever it calls me”. Support for UCCSoon after her arrival on July 31, the exiled Bangladeshi writer thanked the BJP leadership for facilitating her return to Kolkata. The Left parties and the Trinamool Congress did not have much to say on why the writer couldn’t return to Kolkata for so many years. The failure of the “secular forces” to allow Ms. Nasrin to return stemmed from selective appeasement and the prioritisation of vote-bank politics over free expression.