ON JULY WOMEN’S DAY 2025 Nationalised celebration of women’s resistance
- Newage
- Aug 13
- 5 min read
Updated: Aug 19
On July 14, 2024, students of Ruqayyah Hall brought out a procession at midnight protesting against the deposed prime minister’s remark referring to students as Rajakars. Young women of Dhaka University chanting the historic slogan, reversing the meaning of Rajakar, reclaimed the history of 1971. To celebrate women’s courage, the interim government declared the day as July Women’s Day and organised an elaborate celebration at the Central Shahid Minar. Disappointed at the government’s deafening silence on the recent rise of anti-women right-wing mobilisation, Marzia Prova and Nuzia Hasin Rasha, young women activists, did not participate in the celebration and reflected the nationalized celebration of women’s resistance.
Remembering Lamia, and the others
by Nuzia Hasin Rasha
ON JULY Women’s Day 2025, being commemorated by the interim government, I remember Lamia, the daughter of a July martyr, who committed suicide because she did not get justice for her rape. I think about the children and women who become victims of sexual violence every day. I remember Annie Chowdhury, Ripa Mazumdar and Deepa Mazumdar — the core female coordinators of the July Uprising in Chattogram, who were relentlessly kicked by Shibir activists because they protested against the acquittal of a known war criminal.
I recall the woman raped by members of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. I recall the woman who had to watch her harasser get celebrated with garlands. I recall Sumaiya Shikder and her comrades, the July warriors at the University of Chittagong, who were accused of honey-trapping and expelled from the university without any valid ground.
I remember Nadira Yeasmin, whose freedom of expression the state wanted to take away. I think about each female student who is slut-shamed for being late in returning to the university residence hall at night. I remember the female coordinators of the quota reform movement that led to the uprising that were not accepted as ‘proper’ leaders because their choice of clothing did not meet the expected standards.
I think about students who are forced to attend classes of sexual predators. I think about Tathya Apa workers whose jobs the interim government took away, discarding them like garbage of the bygone regime of the Awami League. I think about the employee of the TNZ Group who miscarried because she was forced to take to the streets to demand her unpaid wages.
I think about the women who were put on display as mere ‘tokens’, never allowed to actually do anything. I remember the female member of the staff at Sir PJ Hartog International Hall at the University of Dhaka who was sexually harassed by her colleague. She never received justice as the hall provost, proctor, dean of the Arts faculty, pro-vice-chancellor (academic) and the Dhaka University Journalists’ Association did not bother to take any action.
My mind goes to the female students who come to Dhaka for education, but pass their days in insecurity and financial difficulties because they are denied their place at the university residential halls that they are entitled to. I remember the girl child, who sold flowers, raped below the Shahbagh metro station. I remember the old woman, lying unconscious after being beaten and gang-raped, at Chobir Hat, Suhrawardy Udyan.
I think about the indigenous women who continue to fight aggressive Bengali nationalism and military atrocities in the hills. I think about all women who still have not been able to change the hand they were dealt.
I reject all narrative of the celebration of women paraded by the government. I lend my voice to those who have to fight for their rights; I walk with them in their fight.
No to July Women’s Day
by Marzia Prova
I WILL not participate in the July Women’s Day. I say this in protest, in response to the double standard of the state on the issue of ‘women’. I could have kept my intention a secret; I could have missed the events anyway because of over-sleeping. But as it happened, I saw a video compilation of the events of July 14, 2024, recreated by women, and felt a pang of grief. It made me recall all the incidents of violence against women that have taken place so far. How long will we keep play-acting? How long will the struggle of women be minimised?
On July Women’s Day 2025, I remember how the entire state machinery remained passive when a perpetrator of sexual harassment was celebrated with fanfare at Shahbagh police station. I remember how pressure from all sides was instead put on the woman victim; I think she might have had to withdraw her case.
I also remember that our home affairs adviser spoke about criminalising smoking in public places, and remained completely silent about the mob that attacked two young women because they were smoking.
The authorities concerned considered transferring Nadira Yeasmin to Satkhira instead of taking any action against the fundamentalist mob that launched a smear campaign against her because she wrote about the equal rights of women to inheritance. I remember that.
Women employees of the ‘Tatya Apa’ project have been staging sit-ins at the Press Club for 48 days now. Their demands are the regularisation of their job and the payment of pending salaries to the tune of Tk 20 crore. Our adviser for women and children affairs said that the women were ‘blackmailing the government using young children’. Police used force to disperse the protesting women even yesterday as they headed towards to the Secretariat.
Rape survivor Lamia’s suicide, 780 incidents of rape in the last 11 months, the public tagging of women as ‘prostitutes’ at the rally of Hefazat-e-Islam — I recall all of that.
I recall the sexual harassment experienced by the women who participated in the Narir Dake Maitree Jatra.
I recall how the male Shibir activist was given a warm reception by the mob because he had kicked a female member of the Bangladesh Democratic Students’ Council during a protest in Chattogram. The press secretary of the chief adviser, on the other hand, called the mob part of the protesting activists.
It is not possible to describe how hollow the idea of July Women’s Day rings while prejudice against women continues in this country. The Awami League regime used to celebrate the International Women’s Day, Begum Rokaya Day, etc., to flaunt the ‘visibility’ of women. What did the state actually offer women through such celebrations that were all but tokenised? Or, had women simply been used to perpetuate the fascist regime’s propaganda?
And what has the interim government done for the women, on whose blood and tears it was founded? It failed to take action even against those who publicly called the members of its Women’s Affairs Reform Commission prostitutes. There was not a peep. It, rather, bowed down and said that the recommendations made by the commission would not be implemented at the moment.
What are Bangladeshi women supposed to do with a one-day July Women’s Day celebration? Have the women activists, who used to fight against oppression, not become part of the same oppressing forces the moment they had found themselves positioned within the government?
Every day is July in the lives of the ordinary, working women in Bangladesh.
The state will not belong to women as long as the structure of the state remains repressive, as long as the fascist narratives of the past regime persist, as long as the state uses women and their bodies as tools and as long as women remain the object of pleasure in the eyes of the state, to be celebrated for a single day.
I boycott the farcical commemorations of a state that puts its women at the margins and shuts them out.
I will not be participating in the July Women’s Day.
Nuzia Hasin Rasha is president of the Revolutionary Student Unity, Dhaka University, and a coordinator of the July Uprising. Marzia Prova is a member of Gantantrik Odhikar Committee and actively participated in the July Uprising.
Translated by Saydia Gulrukh.
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