According to feminist theorist C. T. Mohanty, feminism in the post colonial spaces evolves via resistance against power such as follows:
1. Class, colonialism, gender
2. State and racial formation
3. Women and multi national corporations
4. Women as Native
5. Identity, consciousness, writing
It is the last one that I am using here to show how intimate oral histories show us how slowly there was an intent to annihilate an entire race. This is from one of the six diaries of Dhirendranath Bhattacharya, a Hindu from Bangladesh. It is a classic example of the slow genocide and annihilation of a race, the Hindu Bengalis of Bangladesh.
According to Polish Jewish author, Raphael Lemkin genocide is “… the destruction of a nation or an ethnic group… ..genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is extended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundation of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.”
The constituents of genocide are as follows:
1. The perpetrator
2. Victims
3. Goals
4. Strategies
5. Intent
Article II of the UN Constitution lays emphasis on the intent to destroy. According to Article II genocide means any of the following acts committed with an intent to destroy:
• Killing members of groups
• Causing serious bodily or mental harm to the members of the group.
• Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
• Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
• Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
From the dairy of a young Hindu man, Dhirendranath Bhattacharya, who was alive till 1983. Then a lot was heard.
“1338 6th day of Poush month. It is very cold. But the call came. Me, Ajay, Binu, Bilash. Satya da has sent a letter. Day before yesterday. The Yavanas (Muslims) have taken people from our community to the Bali Mosque are. They killed two of them. On the direction of the Police office Kalimuddin. Today as soon as the Pharma class was over Rajen sent the letter. Tonight, we have to start our operation. What the hell do they think? We are dead. The banks of Meghna River are not yet empty.35 of us are ready for war. We massaged our bodies with mustard oil and our hair with coconut oil. They do not know we are children of Goddess Dhakeshwari. The white cops and the Muslim league are the same.”
(The Autobiography of A Young Hindu man, Dhirendranath Bhattacharya. He was alive till 1983. HE wrote 6 diaries which will all be printed).
