Women, War and the Making of Bangladesh: Remembering 1971

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. 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.