As tributes were paid to Kamla Bhasin, South Asia’s foremost feminist icon, my mind went back to a workshop I had attended 15 years ago. There was pin-drop silence and an electric energy in the room when the energized worker spoke. He said that the first place where a woman is most persecuted is the home. either not allowed to be born, discriminated as daughter; Harassed by mother-in-law, thrashed by husband or sexually abused by male members of the family.
She shared the experience of a Jagori (which she co-founded) representative from a training course for underprivileged rural women in remote Rajasthan. A 15-month-old son of a participant developed high fever and his condition became critical and after much effort a doctor arrived and the child gradually recovered. But as the fever went up, the mother said, pointing to her 3-year-old daughter, “I wish it was her and my son was not there”.
Bhasin said that later “when our members scolded the mother for this wish, the helpless woman cried out: ‘I know I shouldn’t have said that. But I attended the meeting, challenging my mother-in-law’s father-in-law. If I had returned without my son, I would have been thrown out of the house. This is the reality of the world we live in; a daughter is dispensable, a son is not.”
When Bhasin was 75, after a battle with cancer, a spirited woman of indomitable spirit, even addressed an Indo-Pak peace forum online from her ICU bed. A social scientist by training, Bhasin had worked with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations for 25 years. This gave him the opportunity to travel throughout South Asia and is also mourned in Pakistan, from whose women he got the essence of the freedom poem he famously improvised. Words starting with: “Meri beheny maange azadi”, the poem is a magical group chant seeking freedom from the plethora of patriarchy and other oppression.
The most remarkable part of Bhasin’s life was the courage with which he faced great challenges in his personal life. She went through a divorce, suffered the suicide of her 26-year-old daughter, and was a gentle caregiver for her son suffering from cerebral palsy. He is 41 years old. Those who were close to her, or worked with her, were astonished at how she could continue to work, laugh and care for so many people, despite the way life had brought her to her. had to face adverse blows. As Syeda Hamid says in her tribute: “She was the epitome of peace, she was feminism, humanism, above all that four-letter word that trembled on our lips; she embodied that word, love.”
She wrote about 30 books, several children’s books, poems and took up the task of correcting gender bias in nursery rhymes. One of his most famous poetry for children is ‘Because I am a girl, I must read’. As Jagori said in her tribute: “Through her songs and posters, she has reached out to millions of activists and active protests. Using simple language to understand concepts, she was able to convey the ideas of feminism and patriarchy to the common man without jargon. “
patriarchy virus
In a recent TED Talk, she said that the tiny corona virus has put a magnifying glass on the many other “social and economic viruses that powerful people have created and continue to nurture and spread to control the world.” The first is the virus of patriarchy that continues to ruin the lives of billions of women, men and transgenders. Associated with this is the virus of virulent masculinity.” Add to this some other viruses from South Asia such as “the deadliest virus of race, ethnicity, religious bigotry and greed that has led many to call disaster capitalism.”
The women’s rights stalwart has been given a fitting final journey, as Pamela Filipoz, senior journalist at Facebook, so eloquently described.
“He was given farewell to a woman who had made it a habit to plant love plants everywhere. Kamala’s sahelis Came from every generation. This ring of tireless friends (who were with her even in her last days and hours) sumptuously decorated the stage on which she rested in the crematorium, with the sweetest, most fragrant flowers of the season. There was also a lot of singing for a woman who loved singing and used songs to change lives – words in Nepali, Urdu, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Hindi… Who will write such songs now?
Kamala’s voice, courage, energy and spirit, beyond boundaries, will provide hope, direction and insight to generations of women on how to tackle the evils of patriarchy and malpractices. And most important, to do so not out of bitterness and hatred, but out of humour, poetry, singing and love.
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