Author, poet, and a pioneer of the women’s rights movement in South Asia, Kamla Bhasin, passed away in New Delhi late Friday night after a long battle with liver cancer.
Bhasin, 75, even before breathing her last, participated in an online meeting from ICU bed, the Indian Express reported.
According to her family, the activist was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year. She leaves behind two children.
Born in Pakistan’s Shahidanwali village in 1946, Bhasin graduated from Jaipur’s Maharani College and then completed her post-graduation from Rajasthan University. She later moved to Germany to study sociology.
After returning to India, she worked for the United Nations for more than two decades. She was remembered for grafting the slogan ‘Azadi’ which is used at almost every students’ and women’s protest today, both in Pakistan and India.
In an interview with The Quint in 2019, Bhasin revealed she first heard the slogan in 1980s by Pakistani women.
“The first group that rose up against Ziaul Haq was not a political party, it was a group of Pakistani feminists. I witnessed one such meeting and that’s where they chanted it. The chant went: Aurat ka naara — azadi/Bachchon ka naara — azadi/Hum leke rahenge — azadi/Hai pyara naara — azadi.”
Later, in 1991, the activist was seen chanting the slogan with a drum in her hand at the Women’s Studies Conference at Kolkata’s Jadavpur University.
Immediately after her death, tributes from across South Asia started pouring in.
#KamlaBhasin was a South Asian citizen in the true sense of the word. She embodied some of HRCP’s most cherished values: the struggle to protect democratic ideals, the resistance against patriarchy and, above all, the power of communities to mobilise for their rights. pic.twitter.com/b2dX4OwxCB
— Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (@HRCP87) September 25, 2021
How Pakistani feminists inspired #KamlaBhasin
— Faiqa Mansab (@FaiqaMansab) September 25, 2021https://t.co/VguGju5htf
I believe it was #KamlaBhasin was the one who universalised the powerful slogan #azadi to mean not just freedom from a state, but also freedom from violence, from fear, from hunger, oppression, and exploitation. pic.twitter.com/vsiqME5hNv
— beena sarwar (@beenasarwar) September 25, 2021
from SAMAA https://ift.tt/3kEvBI2
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