Diverse Feminist Collective Open Letter

“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”― Audre Lorde

“Everything that is experimented on the Hills will be implemented in the plain land.” —Kalpana Chakma

Dear Reader,

We are a newly formed collective of activists, artists, researchers, teachers, human rights defenders, and individuals from systematically oppressed communities who were actively a part of the mass uprising against the Hasina regime and who have in various capacities worked on issues regarding ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality. Having witnessed both this movement and many others, we have observed that a few concerns always become sidetracked, deemed divisive or straight up dismissed as not “political” enough or “urgent” enough. Until the fall of the regime, we did not speak up actively about these since all of us were prioritising the One Demand among our many demands, dreams, and aspirations. While everyone is rebuilding and challenging the existing oppressive structures, we would like to call attention to a few concerns.

In recent years, this movement has seen significant participation from individuals of various ethnicities, classes, genders, and sexualities. However, it has increasingly become dominated by cisgender Bengali middle-class males. Media coverage of revolutionaries who are not male has been minimal, and the contributions of women, girls, indigenous people, and working class people who have been injured or lost their lives are often overlooked.

We call upon the different civil society organisations, student groups, community collectives, media hubs, law enforcement agencies, and the interim government to ensure that the spirit of “Anti-Discrimination” is ensured in all strata of society. Inequality across ethnicity, religion, gender, sexuality, ability, and class needs to be addressed quickly and effectively. Trying to innovate towards a modern and smart Bangladesh, and building monuments of progress is reminiscent of the colonial era, but we need to shift focus towards care for our communities, people, non-human living beings, and ecosystems. Considering that (sociopolitical) class does not encompass the diversity of cultures and knowledge practised by different working classes, peasant, and local communities – the framework must identify these communities and push for a pluralist approach. The divides and cultures of using the internet are widely different; even the configurations of religion, gender, sexuality etc are also diverse among the various constituents. This diversity is the strength of Bangladesh and should be kept at the forefront. To do so, a strong intersectional feminist approach must be taken.

“The personal is political”

Demands:

Parliament must be intersectional and inclusive, with strong representations of the different historically marginalised groups.
Consult and listen to the demands of the different marginalised (Hill tracts and Plain land Indigenous) groups, including constitutional acknowledgment of the “Adivasi” people. We endorse the 11 demands that the Adivasi communities have put forth.
Living wage for tea garden, garments factory workers, and other informal and semi-formal workers.
Basic necessities should be affordable and accessible, such as food, education, healthcare, housing, and transport.
Fix fair pricing for fresh produce and monitor middlemen to prevent imbalance in pricing of basic necessities and the amount received by farmers. Crackdown on rent collection by party members and gangs to protect small businesses.
Reform in rape law to expand the definition of rape, include the notion of consent and marital rape. Expand the notion of rape to include same-sex rape and/or rape of men by women.
Send all the defence forces back to the barracks. Demilitarise the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
Stop the regulation and policing of individuals’ sexuality and expression. Multiple initiatives should be taken to bring about this cultural reform, stop slutshaming and harassment in communities, families, education system, and state.
Repeal the colonial laws that criminalise diverse sexual practices and gender expressions. Pass an inclusive Trans bill that legally acknowledges the identities of Hijras, transgender women, men and diverse non-binary peoples. Make a similar provision for intersex people. Give all diverse peoples access to life-affirming healthcare and support.
Reform the anti-discriminatory policy to create better safeguards for people of marginalised communities.
Repeal the draconian CyberSecurity Act and dismiss all cases under the CSA, DSA, and ICT Act. Dissent and discourse cannot be suppressed in a democracy.
Ensure all public spaces are free and safe for individuals, small and large gatherings of women, and other marginalised peoples.
Ensure that civil servants are trained appropriately to be well-informed and sensitised about the diverse people they serve.
The judiciary system should ensure due process, and political leaders with multiple corruption cases should be tried or punished as verdicts are given, including prominent figures.
The bureaucracy of the state apparatus and the constitution must be reformed, and multiple local initiatives must be taken to cultivate and foster these practices. The family tree and finances of senior civil servants should be accessible to the public to ensure that the relationships that build power among the different institutions are not obscured.
Student politics made the movement and uprising possible and should not be banned across campuses. Activists, teachers, and students should initiate robust conversations about politics, legitimacy, and power to encourage a democratic process.
All the injured students, martyrs, and citizens must be given care and compensation. All those who are unnamed and unidentified must be honoured.
RAB and other unconstitutional paramilitary forces must be dissolved. Those who have been held unlawfully by the paramilitary and other forces during the previous regime(s) must be released immediately. The murders that have not been accounted for or investigated properly over the past years must be investigated, including but not limited to Sagor-Runi, Xulhas-Tonoy, Munni, Major Sinha, and Mushtaq Ahmed. Victims of forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings must be accounted for, and perpetrators brought to justice.

This has to be a country that welcomes people like Rokeya Shakhawat, Kalpana Chakma, and the countless others who challenged power and spoke truth to power. Otherwise, our dream of a pluralist democracy will be a meaningless sham.

We, the undersigned, hope that the government of leaders who have taken oath will also take an oath at Shahid Minar to pledge their allegiance to the people and help us all take steps towards an equitable society. We would like to end with one quote.

“When we revolt it’s not for a particular culture. We revolt simply because, for many reasons, we can no longer breathe.”― Frantz Fanon

In solidarity,

DIVERSE FEMINIST COLLECTIVE | বৈচিত্রময় ফেমেনিস্টগণ

The open letter has been published by AGITATE! Unsettling Knowledges in solidarity with the Diverse Feminist Collective. For a live version of the letter with the list of signatories, please view here.

Featured artwork by Debashish Chakrabarty.