Thursday, January 19, 2012

Dr Yasmin Saikia’s Women, War and the Making of Bangladesh: Remembering 1971 launched in Lahore

Jumbo Editorial Team

Women, War and the Making of Bangladesh: Remembering 1971, authored by Dr Yasmin Saikia, was launched at Forman Christian College (FCC), Lahore, on January 3.

The book has recorded the sufferings of women during the 1971 war between Pakistan and India. The author revealed having interviewed 250 families, directly affected by the war, over 10 years.

She has sought to explore humanity lost, and humanity reclaimed, by women and men who experienced the war that resulted in the partition of Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh in 1971.

Rather than challenging the various versions of the 1971 war, she has tried to present an utterly human story of ordinary people living with war and its aftermath.

“War destroys the vulnerable and unfortunately the individual sufferings of non combatants are seldom highlighted. The book is about families with memories of violence and trauma, missing in the archives of history of the war,” Dr Yasmin Saikia revealed.

“I wanted to focus on the war as traumatised women’s experience and not as a War of Liberation, as widely accepted by the Bangladeshi public,” she explained.

Yasmin Saikia is Hardt-Nickachos Chair in Peace Studies and Professor of History, Arizona State University. She is the author of numerous articles besides two books now. ‘In the Meadows of Gold and Fragmented Memories: Struggling to be Tai-Ahom in India’ was the title of her first book.

The book launch event was organized by Griswold History Society of Forman Christian College (FCC) in which the welcome address was presented by Dr James Tebbe, Executive Vice-Rector FCC, and Dr Yaqoob Bangash, Professor, Department of History, FCC.

The guest speakers included Professor Imtiaz Bukhari, Chairman, Department of Political Science, FCC, and Professor Tariq Rehman, Dean School of Education, BNU.

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