Revisiting the Birangona(s):
The Unsung War Heroines of 1971
Semanti Nandi,
Ph.D. Research Scholar,
Department of English,
Jadavpur
University, Kolkata,
West Bengal, India.
Abstract: The year 1971 was a landmark in the history
of South -East Asia as it witnessed the birth of Bangladesh, following the
Liberation War against West Pakistan. After the conclusion of the war, the
government of Bangladesh, under Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, publicly awarded the
honorific title of “Birangona” to thousands of women who were raped during the
war by the Pakistani militants and their local collaborators. Despite
post-liberation programs by the government to rehabilitate them through
abortions, adoptions, and reintegration, these women faced familial rejection,
social stigma, and subsequent erasure from official histories, revealing
tensions between national identity, communal honour, and gendered violence.
Recognizing how these Birangona women have been largely silenced by the
hegemonic state historiography, this paper aims to shed light on their
predicament by analysing two visual texts — Mrityunjay Devvrat’s film Children of War (2014), and Nayanika
Mookherjee and Najmun Nahar Keya’s graphic novel Birangona: Towards Ethical Testimonies of Sexual Violence during
Conflict (2019). While the former portrays the resilient Birangonas in
rape camps resisting oppression through subversion and embracing war children,
the latter text critiques victim stereotypes by highlighting the survivors’
multifaceted post-war lives as mothers, professionals, and freedom fighters.
These works not only excavate petite narratives against hegemonic silencing,
but also identify wartime rape as a systematic tool for ethnic defilement and
post-war identity politics. Ultimately, the paper investigates the way the embattled
bodies of the Birangonas embody the human cost of nation-building, urging
recognition of their agency beyond victimhood.
Keywords:
Birangona, Bangladesh Liberation War, wartime rape, national identity, gender,
testimony
Countries born out of war and strife leave indelible
marks in the memories of its residents. The birth of Bangladesh was no
exception. On 16th December 1971, Bangladesh became a sovereign independent
state, following nine months of guerilla warfare and an ultimate armed
intervention by India (D’Costa 110). But the human cost involved in the
struggle for liberation was immense. While some of it is acknowledged publicly,
parts of it still remains overlooked by the metanarratives of history and can
only be gathered through the micronarratives offered by individuals. One such voice which the official history of
Bangladesh seems to muffle is that of the “Birangona” – the victims of the
wartime sexual violence. The aim of my paper is to shed light on the experience
of the Birangonas or the rape survivors who have suffered a strenuous process
of silencing by the hegemonic narratives of history in spite of their integral
role in the liberation struggle of Bangladesh. I aim to probe into the plight
of these rape victims both during and after the war in order to interrogate the
way concepts of national identity and communal honour play a vital role in
determining women’s wartime experiences as well as delimiting their identities
and choices subsequently. I intend to found my paper upon two visual texts –
Mrityunjay Devvrat’s movie Children of War (2014) and Nayanika
Mookherjee and Najmun Nahar Keya’s graphic novel Birangona: Towards Ethical
Testimonies of Sexual Violence during Conflict (2019) – both of which offer
a nuanced depiction of the ordeals of the Birangona women.
Women have remained the soft targets of genocidal attacks
both owing to ideological and biological reasons. The former label them as
possessions of men and thereby coveted spoils of war who could be captured to
symbolically disgrace the men of the enemy camp, while the latter identify
women as biological perpetuators of a race whose wombs could be appropriated to
contaminate the bloodline of the enemy. The Bangladesh liberation war of 1971,
which spawned the sovereign nation-state of Bangladesh, was no exception. The
catastrophic warfare that ensued between West Pakistan and its Eastern wing,
owing to the latter’s demand for secession, occasioned extreme forms of
gendered violence. The onset of the Bangladesh Liberation war was marked by the
“Operation Searchlight” (March 25, 1971) wherein the Pakistan Army cracked down
on East Pakistan, engaging in rampant killings, rapes and other kinds of
atrocities (Ishtiyaque 109). While sexual violence against women has always
been a part of wartime atrocities, what sets the Bangladesh Liberation War
apart is the way martial rape was systematically employed for crushing the
dissent of the East Pakistani Bengalis, an ethnic group which included both
Hindus and Muslims, whereby thousands of women were allegedly sexually violated
and ruthlessly slaughtered by the West Pakistani militia and their local
collaborators. Besides targeting them as the metonymic embodiments of their
communities, whose defilement would bring shame upon the entire ethnic group,
Pakistan also identified Bengali-speaking Muslim women as potential fecund
bodies whose wombs could be appropriated for perpetuating “genetic imperialism”
(Clarke 7) and symbolically “converting” (D’ Costa 110) East Pakistan by
engendering “true” (D’Costa 110) Muslims. The aim of such coerced impregnation
was to bring about intergenerational defilement and undermine national,
political and cultural solidarity by confusing the next generation’s identity
and loyalty (Ishtiyaque 112). Thus, within a span of nine months of the
Bangladeshi freedom struggle, a staggering number of two hundred thousand of
women were raped and inseminated by Pakistani soldiers, while many of them were
even incarcerated in army camps as sex slaves (D’Costa 110). Some 25000 of these
attacks, according to Susan Brownmiller, resulted in unwanted pregnancies
(Brownmiller 79).
Wartime rape is
usually resorted to as an established method of breaching dignity of women,
taking them as surrogates for the entire community and the nation, at large. As
observed by Joane Nagel, women occupy a distinctly symbolic role in the within
the nationalist discourse as biological producers of members of ethnic
collectivities and as ideological transmitters of cultural normativity (Nagel
252). In the landscape of warfare, breaching women’s dignity through bodily
violation is strategically employed by the enemy forces for intimidating and
humiliating their opponents, and vandalizing the nation at large. This is
largely premised on the idea that preserving the chastity of the female body is
integral for retaining the symbolic honour of the nation. Thus history,
observes to Ishtiyaque, “frequently strategically erases … mention of sexual
abuse, since it ruptures the masculine notion of nationalism, bringing shame
and disrespect to men— and by extension. History further glosses over the
already forgotten episodes of wartime rape in order to restore a nation’s
dignity and integrity” (113). In a country like Bangladesh, where “virginity
was considered the virtue of a chaste woman”, the issue of rape of the Bengali
women did, in fact, spark an immediate debate about honour and shame (D’Costa
132). However, Bangladesh adopted a
unique stance in dealing with its rape victims. The state, under Sheikh Mujibur
Rahman, the first Prime Minister of independent Bangladesh, conferred the
honorific of “Birangona” (“war heroine”) upon women who had been subjected to
rape and sexual violence during the war. This apparently progressive move— of
identifying the rape survivors as war heroines and attempting to bestow upon
them a degree of dignity, honour and even certain economic benefits— seem to be
primarily guided by the urge to reintegrate them into the folds of mainstream
society. As Susan Brownmiller observes:
Prime Minister Mujibur Rahman’s declaration that victims
were national heroines was the opening shot of an ill-starred campaign to
reintegrate them into society— by smoothening the way for return to their
reluctant husbands or by finding bridegrooms for the unmarried ones from his
‘Mukti Bahini’ freedom fighters… Few progressive grooms stepped forward …who
made it plain that they expected the government, as a father figure, to present
them with handsome dowries. (83)
Moreover, mass abortions were arranged by the state as
Bangladesh flew in medical specialists from other countries to ‘cleanse’ the
wombs of these “war heroines” which were carrying the seeds of the enemy, the
Pakistanis (Ishtiyaque 119). While Prime Minister Mujibur Rahman publicly
acknowledged the Birangona women as his “daughters” and urged the nation to
welcome them back into their communities and families, he staunchly maintained
that “None of the bastard babies, who carry the blood of Pakistanis, will be
allowed to remain in Bangladesh” (qtd. in D’Costa 133). Thus, the state assumed
a strong paternal role and exerted its control over the Birangona women’s
motherhood— either by encouraging them to undergo abortions or by putting up
their illegitimate offsprings for adoption, lest they remained as graphic
reminders of how the liberation struggle took shape through the bodies of
Bangladeshi women. As reported by Nilima
Ibrahim, who was engaged in the post-war rehabilitation programme in
Bangladesh:
We decided that if any of the foreign countries offered to
take the babies, we’d give them up for adoption…Many girls cried and didn’t
want to give their babies away. We even had to use sedatives to make the women
sleep and then take the babies. (qtd. in D’Costa 134)
Such national policies seemingly infringe upon the
maternal rights of women and take away from them the right to
self-determination, thus oppressing in a way the already victimized survivors
of wartime rape. The pregnant Birangona women were seen as potential threats to
the homogenous ethnicity of the nation-state of Bangladesh. This was in direct
contrast to the role that the state expected its women to play as the
biological reproducers of an unadulterated ethnic race of Bengali Muslims
(Ishtiyaque 120).
In spite of the state’s attempts of rehabilitating them
and reintegrating them into mainstream society, the Birangona women were mostly
shunned by their families and communities owing to their supposed defilement.
Even the nation-state of Bangladesh has apparently added on to their
humiliation by removing the existence of the Birangona from the official
history of the country. While the soldiers of the “Mukti Bahini” were
valorized, the treatment meted out these so-called “war heroines” was starkly
different. This is distinctly echoed in the words of Nur Begum, a Birangona, as
she narrates her ordeal to Yasmin Saikia during an interview:
I am an original birangona. My name is not included in
any gazette. I don’t have any record. All my papers and documents have been
destroyed…People laugh at me, they jeer at me…It would have been better if I
had died then. Do you think this country will do any good for us? ...do they
understand what a birangona is? Why she
became a birangona? To fight for our freedom, to protect our country I became a
birangona. (qtd. in Saikia 147).
While the social discourses belittle their voices and the
nation-state, essentializing them as embodiments of war, try to relegate them
to an uncomfortable corner of history, it is interesting to note that artistic
endeavours across time have repeatedly tried to excavate the narratives of the
Birangona women. Mrityunjay Devvrat’s feature film Children of War
(2014) and Nayanika Mookherjee and Najmun Nahar Keya’s graphic novel Birangona:
Towards Ethical Testimonies of Sexual Violence during Conflict (2019) are
no exceptions. Situated in the backdrop
of the 1971 liberation struggle, Mrityunjay Devvrat’s feature film Children of
War (2014) film not only sheds light upon the atrocities inflicted upon the
Bengali Muslim women of East Pakistan who were raped and brutalized by the
Pakistani militia but also interrogates the identity politics war babies who
were the offshoots out of the coerced impregnation. It also highlights the way
East Pakistan’s demand for secession led to a gruesome carnage which claimed
the lives of thousands of innocents as well as led to the mass rape of women of
East Bengal as a means of perpetuation of genetic imperialism. The film
revolves primarily around the experiences of women incarcerated in a Pakistani
army camp as sex slaves. However, unlike the government which looked upon the
Birangonas as mere victims of wartime violence, and thus by extension a
national liability, the film posits them as resilient souls trying to grapple
with the situation that they are thrust into. This is primarily portrayed
through the character of Bithika who, in spite of being incarcerated in a rape
camp, clandestinely manages to slip out with some war ammunitions which she
hands over to the liberation fighters and successfully executes with them a
guerrilla attack on the Pakistani soldiers. However later, she is exposed and
is raped and killed by Pakistani army. But not only she is upfront about the
fact that she has been exposed to the sexual brutality of Pakistani soldiers
but also she is not ashamed to tell her story as it is the story of several
other women of East Pakistan who are enduring such violence for the sake of
materializing the dream of an independent Bangladesh. This resilient spirit is
also embodied by Fida whose ethics of care towards the other women of the rape
camp in an attempt to retain a ray of hope and humanity in a scenario where
these women are treated as worse than beasts. However, even such touch of
humanity cannot be tolerated by Pakistani soldiers. Hence, when Fida tries to
console a distraught woman, who has lost her sanity owing to a sense of
pervasive defilement due to the constant violation of her body, banging against
the barbed wires of the camp, the camp soldier retaliates by shooting the woman
dead before Fida’s eyes. He further mocks Fida by assigning her the task of
digging up the grave to bury her fellow mate, which is chillingly reminiscent
of the sordid realities of the Nazi concentration camps. As she buries the
woman Fida’s monologue makes it evident that the Pakistani army not only
brutalized the bodies of these victims but also defiled their souls which can
only be purged by the blood of these tormentors. However, Fida herself is raped
multiple times by the Pakistani camp guards and becomes pregnant. By the time
the Bangladeshi “Muktibahini” capture the Pakistani camp to rescue the
incarcerated women, a heavily pregnant Fida is discovered by her husband Aamir,
who is now a guerilla combatant. However, in a stark departure from the
governmental policies which demanded that the wombs of the Birangonas should be
purged of the seed of the enemy camp, the film shows Aamir not only accepting
the Fida’s unborn child but also inculcating a similar perspective later into
his grandson whom he encourages to look upon himself as primarily a Bangladeshi
and not a Muslim. Thus, the film seems to question the monolithic idea of
identity and tries to empower the individual reclaiming his agency over the
determination of his identity.
Such a nuanced perspective on the politics of identity is
also palpable in Mookherjee and Keya’s graphic novel Birangona: Towards
Ethical Testimonies of Sexual Violence during Conflict (2019). The text not
only provides insights into the social and political subtexts entwined in the
experiences of the Birangona in the post-1971 period but also sheds light on
the complexities of the identity politics of the Birangona women. The textual
narrative revolves around a twelve-year old school-girl Labonno’s interactions
with her maternal grandmother, fondly referred to as Nanu, and her mother Hena
whose assistance she seeks for her doing school project on chronicling family
memories of 1971. While recounting the details of the Bangladeshi liberation
struggle, Labonno’s grandmother also acquaints her to the figure of the
“Birangona”. The very fact that Labonno’s school history books do not mention
the “war heroines” of Bangladesh except cursorily commenting that “the honour
of 200,000 mothers and sisters have been lost” (Mookherjee and Keya 4) comes as
a glaring pointer to the way the existence of the Birangonas has been largely
glossed over by the hegemonic metanarratives of official history. Labonno’s
grandmother informs her that not only were the wartime rape survivors of
1971were accorded the honorific of “Birangona” but also that the government of
Bangladesh, under Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, set up rehabilitation centres where
the victims of coerced impregnation underwent abortion and war babies were put
up for international adoption. Government ventures like marrying off the
Birangonas or offering them government jobs and vocational training were all
oriented towards reinstating these rape survivors into the mainstream society.
However, the reverence and sympathy that was manifested towards the Birangona
women by the new nation-state was not reflected even remotely in the hostile
attitudes of their families and communities where they were mostly shamed and
shunned for their desecration. Thus, reeling under this burden of social stigma
and familial rejection, many of the wartime rape victims committed suicide
while others became “mute” under an overwhelming sense of shame (Mookherjee and
Keya 8). Such a description of the Birangona reminds young Labonno of the “Hair
Photograph” by Naibuddin Ahmed which is preserved in the Liberation War Museum
of Bangladesh as a visual trace of the rape survivor of 1971. The photograph
which depicts the war-heroine with her loose dishevelled hair and bangle-clad
fists covering her face powerfully resonates with the generic image of the brutalized
Birangona as a mute and disempowered victim. However, such an idea of the
Birangona is flouted by Labonno’s mother Hena, who being a part of the ongoing
Oral History Project, crucially intervenes at this point to share her
experiences of collecting testimonies of rape survivors of 1971. Departing from
the common assumptions about the lives of Birangonas in post-conflict
Bangladesh, Hena reports that not all Birangonas were rendered outcasts by
their families and society—rather many of them still live with their husbands
and extended families, while many of them have held government jobs and have
taken retirement only recently. Hena also tells Labonno that many of the
Birangonas already have their names enlisted in the government’s official
gazette, courtesy the Oral History Projects that have been persistently
conducted since the 1990s, and have started receiving monthly pensions since
2015 after the legislative bill passed on 29th January, 2015 mandated
acknowledgement the Birangonas as freedom fighters. Moreover, the lives of
these women did not come to a standstill after the war and have spanned out in
multifarious directions in the post-conflict context, which in many ways runs
contrary to the subdued and disempowered image of the rape victim. She mentions
the diverse lives of the famous sculptor Firdausi Priyobhashini, Moyna Karim,
Shireen Ahmed and Chaya Rani Dutta — all of whom were sexually assaulted during
the 1971 liberation struggle. However, while the former two have been bold
enough to articulate their experiences of wartime violence at public platforms,
Shireen Ahmed, who suffered rape and consequent miscarriage during the war, has
now developed a professional identity as a government employee, whereas Chaya
Rani Dutta, who is a mother to a war-child, has been compelled to a life of a
sex worker. Thus, Hena points out that it is imperative to understand that
genocidal atrocities have impacted the lives of the Birangonas in myriad ways
and thus it would be myopic to read their identities as monolithic. During the
course of this discussion, Labonno also learns about a family secret— that her
grandmother, Rehana, herself is a Birangona. But her grandmother consoles a
crestfallen Labonno stating that her identity is not delimited to that a rape survivor,
but rather her subjectivity is a palimpsest of multiple personal and
professional identities such as that of a mother, a grandmother and a retired
government worker. Hence it is important
to evaluate the subjectivity of the Birangona in its multiplicity without
relegating her to the generic category of victim. Thus, the graphic novel comes
up with a sharp critique of the predominant tendency to read the lives of rape
survivors as one frozen in time and treat them as fossilized vestiges of
genocidal violence which ultimately ends up dehumanizing the Birangona and
reducing her to a spectacle of gendered oppression.
Thus,the two visual texts— Mrityunjay Devvrat’s movie Children
of War (2014) and Nayanika Mookherjee and Najmun Nahar Keya’s graphic novel
Birangona: Towards Ethical Testimonies of Sexual Violence during Conflict (2019)
— seem to complement one another as they provide profound insights into the
experiences and identities of the Birangona women both during and in the
aftermath of the Bangladesh liberation struggle of 1971. Besides these texts
also play a pivotal role in propelling the audience/readers into interrogating
not only the metanarratives of history but also the politics of identity
construction.
Works Cited
Brownmiller, Susan. Against
Our Will: Men, Women and Rape. Secker and Warburg, 1975.
Clarke, Clarke. “Rape as
a Weapon of War.” Hypatia, vol. 11, no. 4, 1996, pp. 5-18.
D’Costa, Bina. “Gendered
Nationbuilding.” Nationbuilding, Gender and War Crimes in South Asia,
edited by Bina D’ Costa, 2011, pp. 110-143.
“Children of War.” YouTube,
Uploaded by Philosophy And ETC, 14 Jan. 2019,
https://youtu.be/7iaXWgWOYMA?si=f9K4Fs6Hj34q-rNp. Accessed 21 Oct. 2020.
Ishtiyaque, Farah.
“Silencing the Women: Violence through Rape in the 1971 War of Liberation.” Women
and Genocide: Gendered Experiences of Violence, Survival and Resistance,
edited by Joan DiGeorgio-Lutz and Donna Gosbee, Women’s Press,2016, pp.103-133.
Mookherjee, Nayanika, and
Najmun Nahar Keya. Birangona: Towards Ethical Testimonies of Sexual Violence
during Conflict. Durham University Press, 2019.
Nagel, Joane. “Masculinity and Nationalism:
Gender and Sexuality in the Making of Nations.”
Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 21, no. 2, 1998, pp. 242-269.
Saikia, Yasmin. Women,
War, and the Making of Bangladesh: Remembering 1971. Duke University Press,
2011.