March Towards Modernity: Bengali Women

‘The almighty has always remained a mute spectator to the pains and anguish of the women of Bengal’. These words to be found in the first autobiography of a woman in Bengal, remain valid even today. Even today, as the writer informs us, it is possible to come across the likes of Shivnath Shastri’s grandmother who had burst into tears when his eldest daughter was born. The writer’s analysis of men is also straightforward. On the one hand man is seen as leading women from darkness to light and on the other hand is found prepared to douse her in petrol and then setting her on fire. It is the agony of this contradiction that has made her traverse through history in her bid to look back at the lot of the Bengali woman. Her travels took her from Dhaka to Dinajpur, from Burdwan to Hooghly, the sufferings of women occupying the bulk of her factual account. Her journey of course does not end at any mountain of tears, she also shows the narrow path of liberation, the broadening of which is the aim of an on going struggle.