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'THEY
WERE HUMAN' : WOMEN FROM BANGLADESH REMEMBER 1971
Yasmin Saikia
Rs. 350 Hb 2008
81-88965-45-6
(All rights available)
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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 eight oral accounts, this book traces the multiple experiences of Bangladeshi women in the 1971 war. The voices in this book are new and original; almost all of them speak here for the first time about their experiences, and about the social, political and medical work they did during the the war. In listening to 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. Survivors' accounts plunge us into an abyss of post-colonial darkness, from which emerges a human voice compelling us to acknowledge women's resilience and the ways in which they have created meaning beyond the violence they suffered.
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Yasmin
Saikia
is Associate Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is author of numerous articles and a recently published book, Fragmented Memories: Struggling to be Tai-Ahom in India (2004), which was awarded the Srikanta Dutta prize for best book on north-east India by the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi. |
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