A Bangladeshi feminist’s personal – and political – history of her land

“I used to climb coconut trees as a child,” Noorjahan Bose writes towards the end of Daughter of the Agunmukha, in which the Bangladeshi writer and feminist activist recounts her memories spanning colonial-era Bengal in the 1930s and Bangladesh in the mid-2000s. It is a simple enough statement, but it pops up at such a tense, unexpected moment in the book that it catches the reader off guard – even as, in the very next instant, it feels like the most natural of responses from a narrator like her in her situation. 

It was 16 June 1971: Bangladesh, having recently declared its independence and shed the tag of East Pakistan, was four months into the throes of the Liberation War, fighting against occupying Pakistan forces. Throngs of Hindus, pro-Liberationists and other at-risk East Pakistanis were fleeing into neighbouring India for sanctuary. Noorjahan and her husband, Swadesh, both activists from the days of the 1952 Bangla Language Movement – a landmark in the development of Bengali nationalism – had barely made it to Agartala, in the Northeast of India, where Swadesh was no longer an at-risk religious minority. Back home, Swadesh’s Hindu name and political allegiances made him a perpetual target for the genocidal Pakistan Army. Noorjahan had been flitting between houses, asking acquaintances for shelter and for help in securing Swadesh’s safe passage to India. Swadesh, meanwhile, maintained that he would rather die bravely in his own land than flee.