Feminist activist Kamla Bhasin passed away on September 25 after a brief struggle with liver cancer, leaving South Asia poorer. She is one of the very few or perhaps the only figure who is mourned collectively by South Asia.
Kamla was born in 1946, a year before the partition, in a village Shahidanwali, Mandi Bahauddin in what is now the Pakistani side of the Punjab. After the partition, her family moved to Rajasthan, India and she completed her education in Jaipur. She married a Sikh man in the 1970s and had two children, who she lovingly brought up.
Kamla lost her daughter Meeto at a young age and continued to carry that sorrow in her heart throughout her life.
Kamla was amongst the first generation of feminists who believed in regional peace and hence founded Sangat. The seed for the idea of forging the solidarities between South Asian feminists was sown by Kamla and Women Action Forum (WAF) founding member Nighat Said Khan from Pakistan during one of their gender trainings in Pakistan.
At the time, the governments of the two South Asian countries were hostile to each other. The 1980s was a tumultuous time for the region. India, Pakistan and Bangladesh had their tensions while Sri Lanka and India were dealing with the war crimes committed by the Sri Lankan army as well as the Indian peace keeping mission. Nepal had continued to be intimidated by India yet Kamla along with Sangat believed that it was still possible to continue to build friendships between individual feminists from these countries.
In such times what Kamla and her contemporaries did was nothing short of a miracle.
This forging of solidarities and women’s friendships across borders continues today in the form of Sangat’s month-long courses every year. The course has been running for over two decades now and hundreds of south Asian women from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lankan Bhutan, Afghanistan and Myanmar have graduated from it.
The course is conducted every year comprising 40 women participants from across South Asia. It was at this course that I first met her in Nepal in 2016 and we became lifelong friends.
Much of what I practice in my grassroots activism and organising is what I have learnt from Kamla. She believed in the power of love, joy and celebration. She had the magic of making movement building fun and that's one of the biggest learnings most women take away from the course.
Due to her commitment Kamla could speak and write in almost one language of each country. She would speak Nepali when she was in Nepal, Punjabi when she was in Pakistan and Bangla when speaking to Bangladeshi feminists. Her love for the region was embodied in the way she lived her life.
Kamla in her fifteen days at the course would make us do yoga every morning and sing before starting the class and ended it all with dance and music everyday. Despite being a very annoying student who would challenge Kamla every day in class and would prefer to lie on the floor than sit straight through the sessions, she continued to love me. A year after the course she recommended me to be a trainer for another South Asian institute which I continue to do till date. It first came as a surprise that she would recommend me, someone who continued to be a pain for her. Through this incident I learned that despite our disagreements, Kamla could still respect my work.
We continued to meet each other whenever we would get a chance to -- in Pakistan and Nepal. I often felt like her love for me was an expression of her love for my country, Pakistan. Kamla was often the first one to get in touch with me every time I faced a problem. Over the years she went from being Kamla di to Kammo for me. Kamla was capable of showing you how to love more than she would tell you that she loves you. I often say I went to Sangat as a Pakistani woman and came out as a South Asian. She would frown if one did not have a basic understanding of other South Asian languages and emphasized that feminists should invest in learning these regional languages.
Kamla was a firm believer in peace between India and Pakistan, and she led many efforts towards peacekeeping between the two countries. It seemed like her heart was torn between the two countries. She would often lament the borders especially between India and Pakistan. In 1990, dozens of Pakistani women including Asma Jehangir went to Delhi as part of the women’s initiative for peace in South Asia.
Kamla wrote dozens of songs for the feminist movement whcih continue to be part of women’s movement in both India and Pakistan. Her songs have been translated in many South Asian languages and are now sung all over South Asia. She wrote the song “tor tor kay bandhanooN ko dekhou behnaiN aati haiN'' for the women of South Asian region who despite borders and animosities between their countries continued to forge friendships and solidarities.
As the feminist movement grew and evolved, Kamla faced criticism on her positions regarding trans* people’s struggle and questions from Dalit feminists. Kamla had a zest to explore new subjects and was open to learning. When I would disagree with her, she would often ask me to help her understand what my position is. Kamla’s feminism, like that of the rest of us, was not perfect but she was always open to evolving.
During her short battle with cancer, she sent me a voice note telling me about her illness. She told me that she has lived well and it seems like “bulawa aa gayya hai”. Her voice was shaking due to weakness yet she managed to crack a joke in Punjabi and was the first one to say goodbye. She made sure to tell most of her friends to celebrate her life and that is how Kamla was given farewell in Delhi, with her songs and music. That is who Kamla was and that’s how she will be remembered forever. Kamla left her body, but continues to live in the hearts of her friends across South Asia.
Kamla was born in 1946, a year before the partition, in a village Shahidanwali, Mandi Bahauddin in what is now the Pakistani side of the Punjab. After the partition, her family moved to Rajasthan, India and she completed her education in Jaipur. She married a Sikh man in the 1970s and had two children, who she lovingly brought up.
Kamla lost her daughter Meeto at a young age and continued to carry that sorrow in her heart throughout her life.
Kamla was amongst the first generation of feminists who believed in regional peace and hence founded Sangat. The seed for the idea of forging the solidarities between South Asian feminists was sown by Kamla and Women Action Forum (WAF) founding member Nighat Said Khan from Pakistan during one of their gender trainings in Pakistan.
At the time, the governments of the two South Asian countries were hostile to each other. The 1980s was a tumultuous time for the region. India, Pakistan and Bangladesh had their tensions while Sri Lanka and India were dealing with the war crimes committed by the Sri Lankan army as well as the Indian peace keeping mission. Nepal had continued to be intimidated by India yet Kamla along with Sangat believed that it was still possible to continue to build friendships between individual feminists from these countries.
In such times what Kamla and her contemporaries did was nothing short of a miracle.
This forging of solidarities and women’s friendships across borders continues today in the form of Sangat’s month-long courses every year. The course has been running for over two decades now and hundreds of south Asian women from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lankan Bhutan, Afghanistan and Myanmar have graduated from it.
The course is conducted every year comprising 40 women participants from across South Asia. It was at this course that I first met her in Nepal in 2016 and we became lifelong friends.
Much of what I practice in my grassroots activism and organising is what I have learnt from Kamla. She believed in the power of love, joy and celebration. She had the magic of making movement building fun and that's one of the biggest learnings most women take away from the course.
Due to her commitment Kamla could speak and write in almost one language of each country. She would speak Nepali when she was in Nepal, Punjabi when she was in Pakistan and Bangla when speaking to Bangladeshi feminists. Her love for the region was embodied in the way she lived her life.
Kamla in her fifteen days at the course would make us do yoga every morning and sing before starting the class and ended it all with dance and music everyday. Despite being a very annoying student who would challenge Kamla every day in class and would prefer to lie on the floor than sit straight through the sessions, she continued to love me. A year after the course she recommended me to be a trainer for another South Asian institute which I continue to do till date. It first came as a surprise that she would recommend me, someone who continued to be a pain for her. Through this incident I learned that despite our disagreements, Kamla could still respect my work.
We continued to meet each other whenever we would get a chance to -- in Pakistan and Nepal. I often felt like her love for me was an expression of her love for my country, Pakistan. Kamla was often the first one to get in touch with me every time I faced a problem. Over the years she went from being Kamla di to Kammo for me. Kamla was capable of showing you how to love more than she would tell you that she loves you. I often say I went to Sangat as a Pakistani woman and came out as a South Asian. She would frown if one did not have a basic understanding of other South Asian languages and emphasized that feminists should invest in learning these regional languages.
Kamla was a firm believer in peace between India and Pakistan, and she led many efforts towards peacekeeping between the two countries. It seemed like her heart was torn between the two countries. She would often lament the borders especially between India and Pakistan. In 1990, dozens of Pakistani women including Asma Jehangir went to Delhi as part of the women’s initiative for peace in South Asia.
Kamla wrote dozens of songs for the feminist movement whcih continue to be part of women’s movement in both India and Pakistan. Her songs have been translated in many South Asian languages and are now sung all over South Asia. She wrote the song “tor tor kay bandhanooN ko dekhou behnaiN aati haiN'' for the women of South Asian region who despite borders and animosities between their countries continued to forge friendships and solidarities.
Kamla was a firm believer in peace between India and Pakistan, and she led many efforts towards peacekeeping between the two countries.
As the feminist movement grew and evolved, Kamla faced criticism on her positions regarding trans* people’s struggle and questions from Dalit feminists. Kamla had a zest to explore new subjects and was open to learning. When I would disagree with her, she would often ask me to help her understand what my position is. Kamla’s feminism, like that of the rest of us, was not perfect but she was always open to evolving.
During her short battle with cancer, she sent me a voice note telling me about her illness. She told me that she has lived well and it seems like “bulawa aa gayya hai”. Her voice was shaking due to weakness yet she managed to crack a joke in Punjabi and was the first one to say goodbye. She made sure to tell most of her friends to celebrate her life and that is how Kamla was given farewell in Delhi, with her songs and music. That is who Kamla was and that’s how she will be remembered forever. Kamla left her body, but continues to live in the hearts of her friends across South Asia.