Feminism in Bangladesh

Early feminist movements

• Early feminist movement in Bangladesh started long before its independence i.e. in
British and Pakistan period.
• Theses movements included social reform movements carried by male along with
• female social leaders during 19th century.
• These movements focused on abolishing evil social practices such as infanticide,
child marriage, burning of widow, not allowing widow marriage.
Some of the major movements included social reformists like,

▪ Raja Ram Mohan Roy (22 May 1772 – 27 September 1833): He was one of the
founders of the Brahmo Sabha, the precursor of the Bhahmo Samaj, a socio-
religious reform movement in the Indian subcontinent. His influence was apparent
in the fields of politics, public administration, education and religion. He fought
against Hindu customs such as Sati, polygamy, child marriage and the caste
system. He also demanded property inheritance rights for women. In 1828, he
set up the Brahmo Sabha a movement of reformist Bengali Brahmins to fight
against social evils. Lord William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck served as
Governor General of India from 1828 to 1835 and was known for abolishing Sati
Daho (Burning of widows). He was against the superstitious practices of Hindu
religion and wanted to legitimise Hinduism in the eyes of British.
 Feminist movements
▪ Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar (26 September 1820 – 29 July 1891):
He was a philosopher, academic educator, writer, translator, printer, publisher,
entrepreneur, reformer and philanthropist. He also forced the British to pass the widow
marriage act. The Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act, 1856,, enacted on 26 July 1856,
legalised the remarriage of Hindu widows in all jurisdictions of India under East India
Company rule. It was drafted by Lord Dalhousie, but it was passed by his successor
Lord Canning. It was the first major social reform legislation after the abolition of Sati.

To protect what it considered family honour and family property, upper caste Hind
society had long disallowed the remarriage of widows, even child and adolescent ones.
The act provided legal safeguards against loss of certain forms of inheritance for
remarrying a Hindu widow. This act especially targeted Hindu child widows whose
husbands had died before consummation of marriage.

Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was the most prominent campaigner. He petitioned the
Legislative council, but there was a counter petition against the proposal as well. But
Lord Dalhousie personally finalised the bill despite the opposition.
 Feminist movements
▪ Rokeya Khatun/ Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain[a] (9 December 1880 – 9 December 1932),
commonly known as Begum Rokeya, was a feminist thinker, educator and political activist
who is widely regarded as a pioneer of women’s liberation in South Asia.
Her works ---
• Advocated for women’s equal rights as men.
• Emphasized on Women’s education as a way to liberate and empower them.
• Some of her major books focusing on women’s rights and liberation, such as,

Matichur (1904 & 1922): collection of essays in two volumes expressing her feminist thoughts;

Sultana’s Dream(1905), a feminist science fiction set in Lady land ruled by women;
Padmarag (1924) depicting the dreadful picture of married lives of Bengali girls in general;
Abarodhbasini (1931), a spirited attack on the extreme forms of purdah that endangered women's
lives and thoughts.[2]
 Feminist movements
• She established the first school aimed primarily at Bengali Muslim girls
in Kolkata. Rokeya is said to have gone from house to house persuading
the parents to send their girls to her school.

• In 1916, she founded the Muslim Women’s Association, an organization

that fought for women’s education and employment.

• In 1926, Rokeya presided over the Bengal Women’s Education

Conference convened in Kolkata, the first significant attempt to bring
women together in support of women’s education rights.

• She was engaged in debates and conferences regarding the advancement of

women until her death on 9 December 1932, shortly after presiding over
a session during the Indian Women’s Conference.
 Feminist movements
• Rokeya also founded the Anjuman-e-Khawateen-e-Islam (Islamic
Women's Association), which was active in holding debates and
conferences regarding the status of women and education. She advocated
reform, particularly for women, and believed that excessive conservatism
were principally responsible for the relatively slow development of
Muslims in British India.

▪ Kamini Roy (12 October 1864 – 27 September 1933) was a leading

Bengali poet, social worker and feminist in British India.

• She was the first woman honours graduate with Sanskrit honours from
Bethune college of the University of Calcutta in 1886 and started teaching
there in the same year.
 Feminist movements
• She was a mathematical prodigy but later her interest switched to
Sanskrit.

• She advocated for women’s education when merely getting educated

was a taboo for a woman. Speaking to a girls' school in Calcutta,
Roy said that, "the aim of women's education was to contribute to
their all-round development and fulfilment of their potential".

• In a Bengali essay titled The Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge she

wrote, ‘The male desire to rule is the primary, if not the only,
stumbling block to women's enlightenment ... They are extremely
suspicious of women’s emancipation. Why? The same old fear –
'Lest they become like us‘.
 Feminist movements
• She, along with Kumudini Mitra and and Mrinalini Sen ,In 1921,
became one of the leaders of an organization formed to fight for woman's
suffrage. The Bengali Legislation Council granted limited suffrage to
women in 1925, allowing Bengali women to exercise their right for the
first time in the 1926 Indian general Election.

• She was a member of the Female Labour Investigation Commission

(1922–23) where she significantly contributed.

• She got married at the age of 30, which was against the social norm
during that time. It was highly unusual for women to get married in their
thirties in colonial Bengal.

• She was president of the Bengali Literary Conference in 1930 and vice-
president of the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad in 1932-33 and inspired many
Benagli female writers for writing.
 Feminist movements
▪ Begum Sufia Kamal (20 June 1911 – 20 November 1999) was a
Bangladeshi poet and political activist.
• She took part in the Bengali nationalist movement of the 1950s and
became civil society leader in independent Bangladesh.
• She died in 1999 and was the first woman to be given a state funeral in
Bangladesh.
• Kamini Roy visited her in Barishal when she was very young and
inspired her in writing for women.
• she could not afford to get academic education. But from her house tutors
she learned Bengali, Hindi, English, Urdu, Arabic, Kurdish and Persian

• She met Begum Rokeya in 1918 when she went to Kolkata which inspired
her immensely to advocate for women’s rights .

• She was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi to wear simple clothing when

she met him in 1925.
 Feminist movements
• In 1931 she became the first Bengali Muslim female to be a member of
the Indian Women Federation.

• In 1947, when "Shaptahik Begum" was first published, she became its first
editor.

• In October of that year after the partition of India she came to Dhaka.
During a huge clash between Hindu and Muslim of that time she worked
for their friendship and joined in Peace Committee.

• In 1948, when Purbo Pakistan Mohila Committee formed, she became its
chairman.

• Sufia Kamal's activism continued in 1952, with the Language Movement.

 Feminist movements
• In 1961, when the Pakistani government banned Rabidra Sangeet, she became
involved in the movement among Bengalis that ensued in 1961.

• During the mass uprising in 1969, which demanded the resignation of General Ayub
Khan, she promoted the cause by forming Mohila Sangram Parishad (Women's
Struggle Group).

• In later life, she made women's rights her top priority and headed Bangladesh's largest
women's organisation, Mahila Parishad, for many years. She did not see the
oppression of women as mainly a class issue.

• Begum Sufia Kamal showed her bravery several times. Once General Ayub Khan, the
military ruler of Pakistan, at a meeting with social elites of Dhaka, commented that
ordinary people are like beasts and as such, not fit to be given franchise. Sufia Kamal at
once stood up and remarked, "If the people are beasts then as the President of the
Republic, you are the king of the beasts”.
 Feminist movements
• She actively but secretly helped freedom fighters of the Liberation War>
In 1971, several people in Dhaka including professor Ghyasuddin Ahmed
and writer Shahidullah Kaiser collected medicine and food and delivered
those to the posts of Sufia Kamal's house.

• The Pakistan Army and their collaborators killed Sufia Kamal's son-in-
law, Kahar Chowdhury, because they were very angry with her.

▪ Sultana Kamal, daughter of Begum Sufia Kamal, is a Bangladeshi lawyer

and human rights activist.
• She serves as the Executive Director of Ain o Salish Kendra, a civil rights
organisation.
• In 2006, she served as adviser in the Caretaker government of Bangladesh
during the2006-2008 Bangladeshi political crisis. Kamal, along with three
other advisers, resigned from the caretaker government.
 Feminist movements
• In 1971, she also joined the Mukti Bahini and was one of the founders of the Bangladesh
Field Hospital in Agartala for the freedom fighters.

• She writes in the dailies and periodicals on social, legal and gender issues. She has published
a book on women's legal rights titled Manobir Nishanka Mon translated into English under
the title of Her Unfearing Mind.

• She works for the rights of women. She worked in notable organizations and fought many
cases for women’s rights.

▪ Taslima Nasrin (25 August 1962) is a Bangladeshi author and former physician who has been
living in exile since 1994.

• From a literary profile as a poet in the late 1970s, she gained global attention by the
beginning of 1990s owing to her essays and novels with feminist views and criticism.

• She advocates freedom of thought and human right by publishing, lecturing, and
campaigning .
 Feminist movements
• While she studied and practised medicine, she saw girls who had been
raped; she also heard women cry out in despair in the delivery room if their
baby was a girl which she wrote in her writings.

• Nirbachito Kalam: She collected columns in a volume titled Nirbachita

Column, which in 1992 won her first Ananda Purashkar award, a
prestigious award for Bengali writers.

• Lajja

• Ka

• Protest against her by Islamic fundamentalist.

 Feminist movements
• Her own experience of sexual abuse during adolescence
and her work as a gynaecologist influenced her a great
deal in writing about the alleged treatment of women in
Islam and against religion in general.
• In 1989 Nasrin began to contribute to the weekly
political magazine Khaborer Kagoj, edited by Nayeemul
Islam Khan, and published from Dhaka. Her feminist
views and anti-religion remarks articles succeeded in
drawing broad attention, and she shocked the religious
and conservative society of Bangladesh by her radical
comments and suggestions.