Contribution of Women in the Formation of Bangladesh: A Critical Appraisal on Tahmima Anam's novels A Golden Age and The Good Muslim

Abstract

The 1971 Bangladeshi Liberation war is one of the most significant and phenomenal event in the history of twentieth century Indian subcontinent. This bloodstained historical event constantly lingers in the minds of Bangladeshi people while constructing the Bangladeshi sense of nationalism. Till today, the Liberation war has been in the centre of attention in both national and international media. It has been depicted in various mediums both in home and abroad. And in the traditional history of war and in the formation of any nation, women have always been depicted as passively exploited figures, merely a victim of war and doing nothing so actively to be recognized.Such traditional representation of the contribution of women in history has been reconstructed by Bangladeshi diasporic novelist, Tahmima Anam in her debut novel A Golden Age (2007) and in its sequel, The Good Muslim (2011). Anam has relocated the traditional presentation of women as exploited, tortured, raped, submissive and passive in the war history. Unlike the conventional passive victims, her heroines are active, liberal, brave and courageous women who not only defy the men controlled situations to live in it, but also shows the way for her contemporary women how to cope with the double colonization faced by every woman in their home and the society and thus contribute in the formation of nation and its identity. This proposed research seeks to explore the role of women in the formation of Bangladesh as a nation with the references to Tahmima Anam’s fictions A Golden Age and The Good Muslim.

Key Words: partition, 1971 Bangladeshi Liberation war, partition and gender, feminism, trans-nationalism