The Story of Birangona
Bangladesh gained its independence from Pakistan on December 16 1971, following its victory in the Bangladesh Liberation War. The development of the Bengali nationalist and self-determination movement in what was then East Pakistan served as the catalyst for the Liberation War for 9 months of intense guerilla warfare. Whilst 1947 for some is widely known as the start of a new independent era for India and Pakistan, the devastating struggle and loss for Bengalis had only just begun.
In a systematic campaign of annihilation against Bengali civilians, students, intelligentsia, religious minorities, and armed personnel, members of the Pakistani military committed mass murder, deportations, and the genocidal rape of thousands. The war did not discriminate against anyone — child, adult, man, woman, Hindu, or Muslim, as 30 million Bengalis were internally displaced, and an estimated 10 million escaped as refugees to neighbouring India.
Pakistan's religious leaders openly supported the crime by labelling Bengali freedom fighters as "Hindus" and Bengali women as "the booty of war". But in reality, more than 80 percent of the Bengali people were Muslims at that time. The largest military surrender since the Second World War took place in Dhaka on December 16 1971, after India formed an alliance with Bangladesh and advanced its military forces, forcing Pakistan to wave its white flag.
According to the ministry, around 200,000 women and girls were abused during the Liberation War, but independent sources put the number at 400,000. Estimates of the War Crimes Fact Finding Committee shows that around 468,000 women and girls were abused in 1971. The Pakistani Army also kept numerous Bengali women as sex-slaves inside the Dacca Cantonment. Most of the girls were captured from Dhaka University and private homes. It was said Pakistani soldiers had been instructed to rape women in order to create a new generation of Bengalis ‘who would not be willing to fight their West Pakistani fathers’.
A woman's war is unique because she must combat not just on the front lines but also at home, supporting her family through the hardships of war. They performed a variety of roles, including spies, mothers, nurses, spouses, informers, and guerrilla combatants. Their pain was as varied as their roles: they experienced death, physical impairment, mass rape and the subsequent pregnancy, psychological trauma, and destruction of their homes. They were the ones expected to rebuild families after the war all while coping with the scars it left.
The aftermath of the Bangladesh Liberation War meant thousands of these traumatised women had to face ostracisation and shame in the predominantly Muslim and Hindu communities they lived in. 20,000 pregnancies were estimated resulting from the rape of Bengali women. It was in tradition that most Muslim husbands decided against ‘taking back’ their wives if they had been touched by another man, even if they were subdued by force. Officials said that, despite efforts by Bangladeshi authorities to break that tradition, ‘very, very few’ men took their wives back after they had been raped. Many women killed themselves, some left the nation to work as servants overseas, and a large number were killed during abortions by inexperienced midwives.
On December 22 1971, the Bangladeshi government designated women who had been sexually assaulted as Birangona or war-heroines. Birangona became synonymous with dishonoured and violated women. They were casualties of war, who bore the seeds of evil in them, reminding Bengalis of times of misery. However, President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman referred to them as his daughters and urged Bangladesh to "provide appropriate honour and dignity to the ladies victimised by the Pakistani army."
The Bangladeshi government not only carried out the unprecedented task of referring to women raped during the war of 1971 as Birangonas but, in 1972, the independent government set up rehabilitation centres for Birangonas who undertook abortion, put their children up for international adoption, arranged their marriages, trained them in vocational skills and often ensured for them government jobs.
In order to elevate the status of Birangona as freedom fighters, the Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association filed a petition with the Bangladesh High Court. The High Court requested the government in January 2014. After much deliberation on upgrading the status of these women, and more than forty years after the war, the Bangladeshi government officially recognised 43 Birangona as freedom fighters for the first time on October 23 2015.
Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Haque said that now they would enjoy the same government benefits as freedom fighters. Including the most recent addition at the 73rd National Freedom Fighter Council meeting, sixteen more Birangonas were added to the list, bringing the total Birangonas that now qualify as freedom fighters to 416 by June 2021.
Thus, despite assumptions of silence in the last 40 years in Bangladesh, there now exist assertions of a public memory of wartime rape through various literary, visual (films, plays, photographs) and testimonial forms, ensuring that the Birangona endures as an iconic figure.
Though the concept of freedom fighters may be alien to diaspora in the West, the case is in Bangladesh they are most highly respected in society. From being taught about them in the school curriculum to having designated funds in their name, they are specially honoured by Bangladesh and its citizens. Although there are still women who do not wish to disclose their identities because of social taboo still present, the list grows longer as recognition and significant progress is made socially. Hope remains in victims of the war that all women be given dignity and the freedom to live without shame.
By Lamisah Chowdhury