“We will be soldiers in a battlefield”

Kalpana Chakma, the Organising

Secretary of the Hill Women's

Federation, was abducted by security

forces from her home 21 years ago on

June 12, 1996. She was a college-going

young woman who was compelled to

become an activist by state-led

repression. Military occupation,

counterinsurgency, violent eviction of

her community's people through

development and transmigration, rape of

Jumma women and state impunity had

been the reality she grew up with as a

Jumma woman. This reality made her

become an activist for the self-

determination of the Jumma peoples and

the liberation of Jumma women from all

forms of domination.

In 2001 Hill Women's Federation

published a compilation of her diary

entries, letters to her comrades, news

articles about her abduction and fact-

finding reports by groups about the

circumstances around her

disappearance. The issues that she talked

about in her diary and in the public

speeches centre around class, self-

determination movement, militarisation

and gender discrimination faced by

Jumma women. She was clearly very

well-read on political thought, feminism

and world issues. Entries in her diary

were not about her everyday activities

but about things she had read that made

an impression on her political thoughts.

There's a section with the title “What is

patriarchy?” in which she compiled a list

of 13 points that illustrate the nature of

patriarchy in Bangladeshi society. In this,

she highlighted the various ways

patriarchy is embodied within a family,

marriage, society and the workplace. She

was critical of the state but she held

society, family and her own community

accountable for propagating patriarchy.

Her feminist thoughts were the

overarching theme of her writing and

speech but she also repeatedly asserted

that the feminist movement and the

movement for self-determination against

a repressive colonial state needed to

function in parallel. She talked about it in

this speech given to representatives of

the Hill Women's Federation at the first

national conference on 21 May 1995:

On the one hand is the steamroller

of rape and torture by the military

and the Bengali settlers and on the

other is societal discrimination,

systematised living and the disparity

between men and women. And then

there are the brutal killings and

ethnic persecution… we will have to

continue our political struggle

through a fire test… we already

know that without the liberation of

the masses and the society's

oppressed class there cannot be

liberation separately for women. An

exploited community cannot give

rights or security of life to another

community. Therefore, my sisters,

we must give the utmost importance

to our national movement [for self-

determination] in order to advance

equal rights for the women. We

have to bring radical changes in our

social arena. We are not going to

deny our threatened social system,

our patriarchal social system. In

our objective, the Hill Women's

Federation's struggle is not only

political, it is at the same time a

struggle against male domination

and oppression in our family and

society.

While she was an activist for Jumma

people's rights she was also critically

following world events including the US

war on Iraq and the South African

apartheid. She admired the work of

international revolutionaries and

feminists. She wrote down notes about

the lives and teachings from South

African leader Nelson Mandela, Jumma

leader Manabendra Narayan Larma, and

feminist writers Begum Rokeya and

Taslima Nasrin. Nasrin seems to have

had a strong influence on her thinking.

In “Taslima Nasrin hotey Udhriti” she

noted down her thinking on how religion

and society repressed women. Reading

from feminist writers and her own

experiences influenced her to write and

speak very critically about gender

inequality. In this article titled 'Do not

keep me in the dark any more, let me

see', she wrote:

There is a natural difference

between men and women but this

does not make someone strong or

weak. It does not make them worth

or unworthy. The idea of this

worthiness or unworthiness has

been constructed through society's

laws, customs, food and work

evaluation. A patriarchal society

does not acknowledge the different

existence of women. In this society

women more or less perform the

role of a slave in her husband's

home. Exceptions can never be

examples.

At the first women's conference in

Khagrachari Town Hall on January 15,

1995 she was heard talking about

feminist challenges against capitalist

commodification of women:

Women are not commodities, they

are not objects that can be

consumed, they are not objects to be

used, they are not dolls to play with.

They are not even just baby-

producing machines, women are

human beings. They must have the

same dignity as human beings. We

will no longer silently tolerate this

oppression.

She frequently infused her feminist

thoughts with her belief in a socialist

solution to all forms of discrimination. At

the women's conference on January 15,

1995 she disclosed her thoughts thus:

We want such a social system where

there will be no rich poor class

divisions. There will not be a

hierarchy between men and women

and there will be no discrimination

between them. A class of people will

not be able to exploit another class

of people.

Kalpana was taken away in the dead of

night. Both her brothers who were

witnesses to the abduction have been

repeatedly telling their story for 21 years.

The writings in her diary give a glimpse

into the kind of person she was and her

feminist and political views that made

her feared by the state. The state has

little patience or compassion for someone

who challenges its authority, especially a

young woman whose popularity and

mobilisation powers through her mere

words were spreading far and wide.

Consequently, even after 21 years of

investigations from various sources the

state has failed to find her abductors and

make the circumstances around her

disappearance public. An investigator

ironically said that since Kalpana Chakma

is the victim and the main witness in the

case the investigators cannot complete

their work or “take a final decision about

her whereabouts”, until she [Kalpana]

comes and gives her witness testimony.

Through her abduction, the failure of

government investigations to come to

any conclusions despite the

overwhelming evidence and the

Kafkaesque process of justice, Kalpana

has proven that the cliched saying “the

pen is mightier than the sword” is not so

clichéd after all, especially if the pen

belongs to a fearless feminist woman

who overcame her marginal gender,

ethnic and religious position and made it

the greatest source of her strength and

courage.

[Translations from Kalpana Chakma's

Diary are by the author of the article.]