Women, War and the Making of Bangladesh   -   Remembering 1971

Women, War and the Making of Bangladesh - Remembering 1971

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Author: Yasmin Saikia
Publisher: Kali/Women Unlimited
Year: 2011
Language: English
Pages: 302
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8188965669

Description

Nationalist histories of liberation or independence are often accounts of heroic resistance and victory. But what is the relationship between nationalism and violence? Is it possible to move beyond demarcated histories of nations and states in South Asia and reconsider a people’s narrative of 1971?

Based on several oral accounts, this book traces the multiple experiences of Bangladeshi women in the 1971 war that led to the creation of Bangladesh, where it is remembered as the War of Liberation. The voices in this book are new and original. Survivors tell their stories, revealing the power of speaking of what is deemed unspeakable.

Women talk of rape and torture on a mass scale, of the loss of status and citizenship, and of ‘war babies’ born after 1971. They also speak of their role as agents of change, as social workers, care givers and wartime fighters. From them we learn first-hand of the horrors of violence, and of the unfinished business of the Partition of 1947 that surfaced, once again, in 1971.

In addition, a few men recollect their wartime brutality as well as their post-war efforts to regain a sense of humanity, to reconcile and heal unresolved traumas.

This book sheds new light on the relationship between nation, history and gender in postcolonial South Asia, by not only interrogating the making of a new nation, but simultaneously posing a challenge to post-1971 historiography in Bangladesh, highlighting the many ‘absences’ in the official and unofficial histories offered so far.

Contents

Acknowledgements
Prefaces

Part I – Introduction

1. The Told and Untold Stories of 1971.

i. History and Memory
ii. Locating the Scholarship
iii. A Short Note on History Writing in South Asia

2. Creating the History of 1971.

iv. The Politics of Pakistan and India
v. Violence on the Side – War on Noncombatants
vi. Becoming Aware
vii. Research Chronicle
viii. Tracking 1971 with the Memories of Women
ix. Women’s Humanity


Part II – Survivors Speak

3. Victim’s Memories

x. Nur Begum and Beauty, Rangpur
xi. Firdousi Priyabhasani, Dhaka
xii. Taslima’s Mother, Dinajpur
xiii. Nurjahan Begum and A Group of Bihari Women, Khulna


4. Women’s Services

xiv. Suhasini Devi, Sylhet
xv. Dr Syed Ahmed Nurjahan, Chittagong
xvi. Jharna Chowdhary, Noakhali, Gandhi Ashram


5. Women’s War

xvii. Laila Ahmed, Rajshahi and Dhaka
xviii. Mumtaz Begum, Jessore

Part III – A New Beginning

6. Postscript – Lessons of Violence

References