Rumanas, and Why they Stay

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Rumana Monzur Hema [Photo credit: UBC

Hana Shams Ahmed

[This article was published in The Forum magazine of the The Daily Star, July 2011 issue]

When Zobaida Nasreen called me up to tell me what had happened to Rumana, I was on a busy street in Dhanmondi and I thought I had heard her wrong. I kept asking her to repeat. She must be talking about someone else, I thought.
But she wasn’t.

It was Rumana Monzur Hema, one of my childhood friends with whom I had intermittent interactions after we grew up and finally reunited last year when her daughter was admitted to the same school as my son.

When I heard about what her husband did to her I was in disbelief and shock.

We had looked up to her as the girl who always came out either first or second in her class. She had come out First in her Masters finals from the International Relations department of Dhaka University and had started teaching right away. Last year she was elated when she won a scholarship to the University of British Columbia. She had been unsure whether to take her four-year-old daughter Anushe with her. In the end she decided to leave her daughter with her mother.

She never discussed what was going on between Sumon and her. He was a graduate engineer who was involved in some business, that’s all we knew.

And that’s why the brutality of the story along with the identity of the victim seemed overwhelmingly unbelievable.

Eyes gouged out. Nose bitten off. Lip bitten off. Dragged by the hair and attempted to be strangled. Saved by maids with an extra key to the room. Of course we presume that if a so-called ‘emancipated’ woman is threatened with abuse, she would have the support mechanism to walk out of that marriage, that she would not care what her family and relatives or those meddlesome people in our society say, that if she is financially independent she did not have to worry about her and her children’s future.

All those assumptions and presumptions fell apart when we heard the sadistic brutality of what happened in Rumana’s room on June 5, 2011.

Disregarding the Jumma

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Andrea Carmen, Director, International Indian Treaty Council speaking at a rally for the implementation of the 1997 CHT Accord outside the United Nations during the 10th session of the UN Permanent Forum. Photo by: Ben Powless

The Bangladesh government’s continued failure to protect its indigenous peoples has forced them to seek international help. 

Hana Shams Ahmed

[This article was published in the Web Exclusive of Himal Southasian on 15 June, 2011 and shorter version for Himal magazine was published in its July, 2011 issue]

This year, Bangladesh was a subject of heated discussion at the tenth session, held between 16-27 May, of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII). The starting point was a report commissioned by the Permanent Forum.  Written by former member of the Permanent Forum Lars-Anders Baer, who went to Bangladesh last year as a Special Rapporteur, the report entitled ‘Study on the status of implementation of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Accord of 1997’ received statements of solidarity from the delegates.

Fighting sexual harassment head-on

Photo: Amirul Rajiv

Hana Shams Ahmed
[This article was published in the 20th Anniversary special issue of The Daily Star in March 2011]

Sometimes a comment from a perfect stranger can have a profound effect on a person’s life. When I was about 13 years old one such comment was made over the phone to my parents. The caller was anonymous and told my father that if I continued to wear ‘western’ clothes in public I would be stripped of my clothes and paraded naked in public. When my mother told me about this caller, her tone never indicated that this was a wrong being done to me, that I should not let something like this bother me, and that they would protect me from such harassment. My father’s complete silence on the matter spoke louder than words. I remember having felt that I had brought shame to my family and my mother followed up by becoming more vigilant about the way I dressed outside. As part of the bhodro middle class, I was powerless to resist at that age. That was almost two decades ago.

Multiple forms of discrimination experienced by indigenous women from the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) within the nationalist framework

Hana Shams Ahmed
[This paper was presented at a consultation with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women Ms. Rashida Manjoo. The consultation was arranged by the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) and Women's Aid Organization (WAO) in Kuala Lumpur in January, 2011.]

Introduction

To understand the discrimination faced by indigenous women in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), it is very important to understand the geopolitical background of the CHT in the larger context of the Bangali Muslim majority of Bangladesh. Pahari women are among the most marginalized and vulnerable groups of people in Bangladeshi society. They live as quadruple minorities under present social and political institutions. In a patriarchal and male-dominated society, they are a gender minority. In a Muslim-dominated country they are a religious minority. In a nationalist, Bangali-dominated society they are an ethnic minority. Within their own patriarchal community they face marginalization, exploitation, and increasingly, violence. A strong political movement exists to resist these multiple marginalization, but it has not been able to create enough resonance within the wider political structure.

This paper looks at the various sources of discrimination and violence faced by the indigenous women living in the CHT and looks at how and why the indifference from the state and the majority civil society further detaches them from the mainstream women’s movement in Bangladesh. Society and the infusion of religion into societal norms already play a huge role in the discrimination and marginalization of the majority Bangali women. In a Muslim majority Bangali society, indigenous women have a further factor of violence against them. Discriminatory family laws, along with discriminatory national laws, add a new dimension and further marginalize women within their own communities. Militarization and the presence of Bangali settlers have been terrorizing Pahari women since the beginning of the insurgency. The insurgency is over but CHT still remains fully militarized and the politically motivated violence against women still continues.

The information for the paper was collected through secondary documents and a series of interviews with grass-roots level women activists in the CHT, activists involved with NGOs and Pahari political groups and Pahari men and women lawyers.

Secularism, Bangali Hegemony and Our Constitution

Photo: Naeem Mohaiemen

Hana Shams Ahmed

[The Forum, The Daily Star, September 2010]

The Constitution of Bangladesh has been brought under the microscope for the 15th time since 1972. With the annulment of the fifth amendment of the Constitution through a judgment by the Supreme Court this year, the Constitution is to revert to some of the core values behind the formation of the original 1972 version, whose four main pillars were democracy, socialism, nationalism and secularism.

The latest judgment by the Supreme Court gives us a chance to look closely at the Constitution, which was adopted soon after the liberation war ended in 1971, in the aftermath of the emotions and ideology that led the nation in the struggle for identity and existence. While the 1972 document had an equal vie towards citizens of all religions, ethnic, cultural and linguistic pluralism were patently absent from the document. Thus, while the 1972 constitution was even-handed to all religions, it did not recognise the fifty or more indigenous peoples and their distinct identities, who still remain as second class citizens of Bangladesh.

When the draft of the Constitution of Bangladesh was presented to the Constituent Assembly in 1972, Manabendra Narayan Larma (founder general secretary of PCJSS) refused to endorse a Constitution that did not recognise the existence of people of other ethnic origins than Bangali . He had protested: “Under no definition or logic can a Chakma be a Bangali or a Bangali be a Chakma… As citizens of Bangladesh we are all Bangladeshis, but we also have a separate ethnic identity…”

Thirty-eight years after MN Larma’s protest, the time has finally come to correct a basic flaw in our national constitutional framework. The formation of the current special parliamentary committee to review and recommend constitutional amendments is a welcome move by the government. Its recommendations must include remedies to a Constitution that is still ethnically communal in nature, putting people from non-Bangali groups outside our definition of nation.

Interview of Raja Devasish Roy

Photo: Abeer Hoque

Hana Shams Ahmed

[Himal, June 2010]

At Partition, the Chittagong Hill Tracts, with an overwhelmingly non-Muslim indigenous population, were included within Muslim-majority East Pakistan. Yet the Paharis (indigenous hill peoples) were never really integrated into the Bengali nationalist movement for independence, which culminated in 1971. Discriminatory attitudes of the majority Bengali and ‘spoiler’ tactics by the central government prevented the Paharis from playing a substantive role in the movement. Following the formation of Bangladesh, the Paharis asked for constitutional recognition and regional autonomy, but were turned down. Marginalised throughout the period of British and Pakistani rule, the Paharis finally took up arms, and Manabendra Narayan Larma, their leader, a young lawyer and legislator, formed the Parbatta Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti (PCJSS), the political wing of the insurgent Shanti Bahini guerrillas, to fight for the political rights of the Pahari people.

In 1997, the Bangladesh government signed a ‘peace’ accord with the PCJSS. But the United People’s Democratic Front (UPDF), a breakaway group of the PCJSS, and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), then (and now) the opposition in Parliament, fiercely opposed the accord. The BNP protested that it allowed the Paharis a separate administrative system and discriminated against the Bengalis, while the UPDF opposed it on grounds that the agreement failed to address PCJSS’s most important demand – full autonomy. Others criticised the accord for not addressing the hundreds of thousands of Bengali settlers who were moved into the Hill Tracts from 1979 through the 1980s as a counter-insurgency measure. Nor did the document give constitutional recognition to the indigenous peoples.

For most Paharis, the 1997 agreement did give them relief from conflicts between their own political groups, and with the Bengali settlers over land and political office. Yet 13 years after its signing, much of the accord remains unimplemented. In February, Bengali settlers, allegedly with support from the army, set fire to more than 400 Pahari homes in 11 villages across Baghaihat of Rangamati district (see Himal April 2010, ‘Manush Bachao’). As yet, there has been no independent investigation into these incidents. In April, the CHT Regional Council, chaired by Jyotirindro Bodhipriyo Larma, the leader of the mainstream PCJSS, was declared unconstitutional by a High Court (though the judgement has since been stayed). If the Regional Council ceases to exist, Paharis will essentially lose all significant influence over the CHT administration.

Raja Devasish Roy is the chief of the Chakma Administrative Circle, an official body, and the traditional raja of the ethnic Chakma community, which lives mostly in the CHT as well as India and Burma. He is also an advocate at the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, and was one of the lawyers fighting the case for the Regional Council. He recently spoke to Hana Shams Ahmed about the concerns and problems that continue to face the Adivasis of the CHT.

Sexual harassment and our morals police

“A single woman is like molasses, ants will follow her wherever she is kept.”

– A lecherous landlord (the character played by Abul Hayat in the film Third Person Singular Number)

Nick Henderson

Hana Shams Ahmed

[The Daily Star, 19th Anniversary Special Issue, February 25, 2010]

AN interesting debate popped up around Mostafa Sarwar Farooki’s film “Third Person Singular Number” when it was released late last year. It began in a Bangla newspaper and poured onto the English blog Unheard Voices. The newspaper reported that students of a private university had held a human chain to protest obscenity in the film — among others, the discussion centred around the concept of “living together” not being acceptable in our society, a scene showing someone purchasing a contraceptive device, and questions about the “character” of the film’s protagonist Tisha because she was living with a man she was not married to.

Media Marketing of Beauty & Female Stereotypes

Photo: Hasan Ahmed

By Hana Shams Ahmed

A bank’s billboard shows “achievement” as perceived by three groups – The child’s achievement is learning the skill of tying a shoelace, the man’s is taking his first step on the moon and finally the woman’s achievement is getting crowned in a beauty pageant.

The beautiful housewife and other stereotypes

Hana Shams Ahmed

Anwara Begum’s new book takes a look at women in the Bangladesh media. She argues that TV ads don’t only sell products but also attitudes and in the process set standards of beauty and mannerism, as defined by men. Hana Shams Ahmed reflects on the stereotyping of women.

[OneWorld South Asia, 8 October, 2009]

Dhaka: Dighi is the darling of the Bangladeshi media. She has long, beautiful hair and has just the right moves that will keep the viewers glued to the TV screen. There are life-size photos of her on big billboards in the city and big roles in films and drama serials already.

It was a commercial for a brand of henna that gave her the big break. In the ad, with a face full of pinkish makeup, she flaunts her translucent pearl-coloured hands exquisitely decorated with dark henna. Her on-screen friends gaze at her hands longingly, wishing they too could look like her.

Of course, this feeling is shared by thousand of girls who are on the other side of the television screen. Although Dighi’s hands look beautiful, one doubts whether that is what the viewers are focusing on.

The attention is clearly on what she represents. As Anwara Begum points out in her book, ‘Magical Shadows: Women in the Bangladesh Media’ (AH Development Publishing House, 2008), “TV ads don’t only sell products, they sell attitudes.” At an innocent age of 10 years, Dighi is the nation’s favourite child model.

Bangladesh’s Women Are In The House

By Hana Shams Ahmed

[Women's Feature Services, May 26, 2009]

At a public meeting in Noakhali district in the Chittagong Division of Bangladesh, Agriculture Minister Motia Chowdhury had a strange encounter. Throughout the proceedings, a group of men stood with their backs toward her. The men, as it turned out, were conservative Muslim clerics, who found it difficult to accept a woman as a leader, but at the same time could not pass up the opportunity of listening to her speech.

Chowdhury is a leading woman politician in Bangladesh. Her involvement in politics goes back to Eden Girls’ College in Dhaka where she became vice president of the students’ union in 1963. She served a jail sentence for political activities in 1964-65 and actively participated in the liberation movement in 1971. In 1990, Chowdhury also actively took part in the movement against the rule of the Ershad junta, which ultimately ended an eight-year military rule. After democracy was restored in 1991, she was one of the few women to win a non-reserved seat in parliament. (In the original constitution, 15 seats were reserved for women. By 2004, this rose to 45 seats.) Chowdhury served as the Agriculture Minister in the Awami League (AL) government from 1996-2001. And is heading the same ministry in the recently elected AL government. Her feisty personality and determination to break barriers in a patriarchal political set-up has earned her the title ‘Agni Konna’ (daughter of fire).

We will not let them forget you

Artwork by Arif Haq

Hana Shams Ahmed

[THE DAILY STAR, 12 June  2009]

SHE was only 22 years old, a very vocal woman activist. An activist from a community that is treated by the Bangladesh state as second-class citizens. Someone who did not fear the most venerated institution in our country. A combination of all these elements made her a chillingly vulnerable person, a target for “The Vanishing” (i.e. those who are made to disappear without a trace).

No Peace in the Hills Yet

Hana Shams Ahmed

It was the previous Awami League government in 1997 that signed the historic CHT Accord in 1997, promising to end 25 years of guerrilla war in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Unfortunately the government-encouraged settlement of poor Bangalis into the area, started in the 1980s, has never stopped therefore destabilising the situation 11 years after the signing. Most of the key provisions of the accord remained unimplemented in the last decade. The newly elected AL government has clearly mentioned in its election manifesto that they will take steps to fully implement the Peace Accord.

Hana Shams Ahmed

[STAR magazine, THE DAILY STAR, February 27, 2009]
Chittagong’s face-lifted Shah Amanat International Airport boasts ceramic artwork of various tourism selling points of Bangladesh. One of them shows a group of quaint-looking Pahari girls doing a traditional dance. Next to it is another Pahari girl in a traditional pinon picking leaves from a hill in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. The depiction of Pahari girls as part of our cultural heritage has always been used to attract national and international tourists. Unfortunately how the common Pahari girls are living their lives seems to be hardly of concern. The Chittagong Hill Tracts is the only place in the entire country (except for the Cantonment areas) where the army still remains with nearly six brigades of approximately 35,000 army personnel.

One big hurdle down

Zahedul I Khan

Hana Shams Ahmed

[THE DAILY STAR, May 19, 2009]

JUST like it took the rape of three women students at Jahangirnagar University (JU) to recognise what an extreme form sexual harassment had taken at the universities it took the suicide of Art College student Simi Banu to bring to mass consciousness the extreme forms “eve teasing” has now taken in this country. And until the defiant JU students took to the streets in 1998, the mere concept of “sexual harassment” in educational institutions was only spoken about in hushed tones among girl students at the university halls.

But now it’s finally here — institutional recognition of sexual harassment. 11 years after the JU case, and many hundreds of silenced and vocal cases in between, the High Court has directed the government to make a sexual harassment law based on the guidelines drawn up by lawyers and human rights activists.

When It Also Happens At Home

Tanvir Murad Topu

Hana Shams Ahmed talks to Sara Hossain about domestic violence

[FORUM magazine, THE DAILY STAR, May 2009]

In December of last year, a case was brought to court by 33-year-old Dr. Humayra Abedin, with the help of human rights organisation Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK), against her own family, for confining her against her will.

She had come to Dhaka in August of that year after being told that her mother was seriously ill. As soon as she arrived home, her parents hid her passport and plane ticket and held her captive. She was forced to take mood stabilisers and anti-psychotic drugs until she confirmed that she would not be returning to the UK, and would give up her job and disassociate herself from everybody she knew there.

On November 14 she was allegedly forced to get married to someone against her will. There were repeated attempts on the part of her parents to not comply with court orders. They only responded after the court said it would hold them in contempt if they failed to show up. They kept claiming that Humayra was mentally ill therefore unable to appear.

After a fierce legal battle and after the High Court in England also passed orders requesting the co-operation of the Bangladesh judiciary and the authorities, her parents finally allowed Humayra to come to the Bangladesh High Court. Two judges interviewed Humayra in person and ordered her to be released and she immediately returned to the UK later that month.

Breaking New Ground

Zaid Islam

Hana Shams Ahmed and Quazi Zulquarnain Islam applaud the pioneering Bangladesh women’s cricket team

[FORUM magazine, THE DAILY STAR, May 2009]

In July 2004, Bangladesh Amateur Wrestling Federation (BAWF) postponed the first ever women’s wrestling competition, following threats from Islamist groups. One of the religious leaders, Mohiddin Khan said: “Female wrestling is nothing but showing off their bodies in front of male audience. This is totally immoral and against the teachings of Islam.”1

The event had been scheduled to take place at the Women’s Sports Complex. In October, members of the Islamic Shashantantra Andolon gathered in front of the National Sports Council to protest against the country’s first-ever women’s football tournament, clogging traffic in the area for three hours.2

In November of the same year, the Bangladesh government stopped women from taking part in a swimming competition in Chandpur, after a group that went by the name “The Committee for Resistance to Un-Islamic Activities” threatened large demonstrations if the competition was allowed to go ahead.3

Who Will Speak for the BDR?

Hana Shams Ahmed highlights legitimate issues that disappeared in the massacre’s aftermath

[FORUM magazine, THE DAILY STAR, April 2009]

“The subaltern uprising story has paled away as threats to the nation’s territorial sovereignty have become clearer”. — Rahnuma Ahmed, New Internationalist (UK), March 17

Six weeks into the bloody carnage at Pilkhana, black banners are still hanging outside the BDR grounds. This is the site where the bodies of 74 people, including 57 military officers, were recovered from mass graves– a political and emotional shock from which the nation is yet to recover.

Two of the most noted army officer victims were director general of BDR Maj Gen Shakil Ahmed and Col Gulzar Uddin Ahmed, the founding director of the intelligence wing of RAB (Rapid Action Battalion) who led the operation to arrest JMB militant leader Shaikh Abdur Rahman.

Public perception first focused on the initial reports on day one about a rebellion centred over pay, rations, corruption, and lack of opportunities. But by day two, public outcry broke out as reports about savage killings started coming out. The “Proletariat Revolution” theory had initially been facilitated by interviews with rebels in orange and red masks, expressing their pent-up resentment over low salaries and alleged corruption in the BDR upper-tier.

Take back the streets

Photo: Zahedul I Khan

Hana Shams Ahmed

[THE DAILY STAR, 11 April, 2009]

Pull up the hood of your rickshaw,” I heard for the hundredth time. It was a very nice day, with the wind blowing, and the sun making occasional appearances. But the hood of the rickshaw had to be put up. After all, I had to ‘hide’ myself from the numerous gawking eyes that always followed me throughout the journey from Mohammadpur to Elephant Road, where I went to study my A-levels.

Out of sight of my parents, I would always pull down the hood, and unfortunately pairs of eyes of all ages would look me up and down as if I was an exhibit in an art gallery. Then, depending on the vulgarity of the yelled comment, I would have to decide whether to keep the hood down, or give up and put it back up.

Migrant Workers: The Never-ending Tragedy

One of the survivors of the Andaman tragedy being helped by an Indian coastguard. (Photo: Sanjib Kumar Roy, Reuters)

Throughout 2008 we received reports about how poor men and women were swindled by recruiting agents in Bangladesh and left stranded in hostile foreign country environments. We saw employers in host countries, taking advantage of migrants’ ‘undocumented’ status to abuse their rights and cheat them of payment. When abused workers tried to protest, it led to ‘bad press’ for ‘Bangladeshi workers’ as a category, and many were sent back en masse. Some governments threatened to stop recruiting Bangladeshi workers altogether, leading to weak and ineffective diplomatic overtures from our side. While the latest press headline reports overseas remittances hitting a new high, the year 2008 ended with another tragedy. 300 Bangladeshi men headed for Malaysia drowned in the sea near the Andaman Islands.

Hana Shams Ahmed

[STAR magazine, 09 January, 2009]

According to press reports from Reuters, 412 men, mostly of Bangladeshi nationality, were promised jobs in Malaysia by unidentified recruiting agents. On 14 November these men, aged between 18 and 60, set sail on six motorised vehicles. At some point during their journey, the men changed vessels, according to an Indian coast guard statement. One survivor, identified as Mohammad Ismail Arafat, said he and others had paid a Bangladeshi agent for jobs in Malaysia. The boats they were travelling in did not have enough food in them and seven of the men died from starvation. After drifting around aimlessly for days, they finally spotted a lighthouse somewhere along the Andaman Islands. Hoping they would be able to swim ashore, the men jumped into the sea. Indian coast guard officials said a group of men were rescued from a small boat near Little Andaman Island, from the water. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands lie about 1,200km (750 miles) east of the Indian mainland. Coastguards finally rescued a total of 112 men. The remaining 300 men drowned at sea.

Youth Boom and Possible Futures

Photo: Naeem Mohaiemen

Hana Shams Ahmed

[Published in 'Our Common Future: South Asia' by Liberal Youth South Asia, a network of liberal youth and youth organisations. November 2008]

In 2008, the results of Bangladesh’s Secondary School Certificate (SSC) exams had an all-time record pass percentage – 72 per cent – and the highest number of GPA-5 recipients ever. For a few years now, all these records are getting broken at every level of higher education. Beyond what it may mean for higher education, it keeps bringing to the media images of hundreds of thousands of young boys and girls in the streets – waving, clapping, celebrating – the shape of our exploding youth boom.

Freeing Bangladesh from Extremism

Terrorism has crossed transatlantic boundaries. The aggressive religious bigots now hold hostage international politics. Whoever may be pulling the strings, fanaticism has already perforated our borders and done much damage in the last few years. Whoever comes to power through this election, must tackle all extremist powers working within the country. To achieve that, the party in power itself must remove all communal elements from political activities.

Hana Shams Ahmed

[STAR magazine, 26 December, 2008]

A Google search on The Daily Star’s website for ‘Sector Commander’s Forum’ (SCF) gives 87 results. Ever since its formation late last year, this group has been making media appearances (very well covered by the news reports, features and op-eds in DS) with two major demands — a trial of the 1971 war criminals and the barring of the known war criminals from taking part in the upcoming national elections. Very reasonable demands. After all isn’t it contradictory for a person who opposed the formation of the nation to sit in the parliament of that same nation?