LAHORE: A book which highlights gender violence in the 1971 war of Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) was launched in a ceremony at the Forman Christian College (FCC) on Tuesday.

The book ‘Women, War and the Making of Bangladesh: Remembering 1971’ is written by Yasmin Saikia and published by the Oxford University Press.

Ms Saikia is Hardt-Nickachos Chair in Peace Studies and professor of history at the Arizona State University.

She is the author of numerous articles and two books, ‘In the Meadows of Gold’, and ‘Fragmented Memories: Struggling to be Tai-Ahom in India’.

The book focuses on the story of gender violence in the 1971 war of Bangladesh to probe the relationship between nation, history and women, one of the most vulnerable groups in postcolonial South Asia.

Moving beyond the external story of the war as a clash of ideologies and struggle for power between rivals India and East and West Pakistan, the author relates the story of the war as a human event of individual losses and personal tragedies suffered by both women and men.

Women talk of rape and torture on a mass scale, and of the loss of status and citizenship. They also speak of their role as agents of change, as social workers, caregivers and wartime fighters. In addition, a few men recollect their wartime brutality as well as their post-war efforts to regain a sense of humanity to reconcile and heal unresolved traumas.

By combining oral testimony with archival research in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, this book sheds new light on the social, political and cultural history of the subcontinent after the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 to show the gaps between people and their governments, memories and history.

The writer highlights how important it is to study violence and know it ethically and personally to develop a human language for reconciliation between victims and perpetrators. She says individual stories of 1971 survivors articulate a collective loss of humanity that transcends the politics of history and nation.

Dr Yaqoob Khan Bangash of Oxford University Press and Dr James Tebbe, executive vice-rector of FC College, presented the welcome address.

The launch was attended by students and facualty of Forman Christian College. FC Political Science Department Chairman Prof Imtiaz Bokahri and School of Education Beaconhouse National University Dean Prof Tariq Rehman also spoke.