Even though we hear about sporadic incidents these days involving tensions among religious groups in Bangladesh, that is certainly not the norm. Despite having differences in political ideology, people of what is know as Bangladesh now have been enjoying religious harmony for hundred of years. We often hear opinions from progressive countries on exercising religious rights and religious freedom. Each nation has room for improvements and so does Bangladesh to leap forward to the next millennium in a positive way. Even though some would like to undermine religious freedom in Bangladesh, one does not need to look through scholarly publications to see clear signs of religious freedom there. It is evident in daily lives as illustrated in the following pictures of Hindus celebrating Durga Puja along with the Muslims fasting in the holy month of Ramadan in Muslim majority Bangladesh where the state religion is Islam. I am not aware of any other nation where each citizen, regardless of their religious affiliation, enjoys national holidays for major religious events of Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism etc.
This year, Muslim holy month of Ramadan and Hindu Durga Puja fell around the same time in Bangladesh. In the above picture, Muslims are buying food for Iftar in the market to break their fast at dusk with other family members.
In the above picture, Durga Puja is being celebrated by Hindus in Ramkrishna Mission and other parts of the country with great passion.
I wrote this blog yesterday, but didn’t publish as I didn’t want to sound too skeptical and speculative about every move by the government. Today this article in the Daily Star emboldens me and kind of details on what I intended to touch base with. So here the post is open to you.
*****************************************************************
In the face of power crisis, the state minister for power sector, Mr Talukdar, has been fired. This is the second firing in 4 months. Previous state minister Mr Mahmud was also fired. I don’t know what they expected him to do in four months.
Do any of us know who is the minister for power sector? This is our prime minister, Khaleda Zia.
Two state ministers have been fired, so govt has acknowledged that the responsibility and the problem lies withing the government. Otherwise they can’t fire a state minister without any fault.
And with continuing power problems, isn’t it the turn of the minister now? Who will fire the minister responsible for power crisis in Bangladesh?
I am not sure why this public service sector is managed by prime minister’s office rather than the ussual practice of being run by the secretariate. I am still surprised why the PMO, the two secretaries involved ( principle secretary and energy secretary) are so eager to remove any other person from the circle. Why not these secretaries are punished or fired?
PMO wanted to fire this state minister at least three months earlier, only one month at the job. Apparently he came out vocal against power sector corruption. I am again surprised why government is so swift in removing this minister. In the past minister’s have been transferred after a long delay.After failure after failure Minister ALtaf etc has not yet been fired! Why govt is so sensitive about power sector corruption issues? How two hawa Bhavan connected secretaries control the power ministry rather than a minister? Why Hawa Bhavan connected newspaper Jaijaidin uses substantial energy and space to trash the state minister of power who vowed to lead a crusade against corruption in power sector corruption?
I haven’t yet seen all the contestants. Yet I already have an early pick. Her stunning voice, illuminating presence on the stage has mesmerized me. I am definite she will be in top ten and very hopeful that she would be in top three.
From the time I read The Grapes of Wrath at the age of 18, it has puzzled me as to why there isn’t more class violence in Bangladesh.
Why is it that the 90% who belong to the poor, the underclass, and the lower middle class – that vast mass who have to watch every day as the 10% at the top wipe off the cream and eat it all – why do the 90% tolerate it? Why don’t they just rise up with knives and machetes in their hands, and put an end to the whole ripoff? What is to stop, for example, the 2 or 3 lakh rickshawpullers in Dhaka – who have to take anger and abuse and sheer human indifference on a daily basis, year after year after year – what is to stop them from banding together and tearing it all down? There would be no way to stop such an uprising except by overwhelming application of deadly force.
The answer seemed to me to lie partly in the fact that the nation is largely unified in terms of ethnicity and religion. This is a huge blessing in a poor, overcrowded place like Bangladesh – because the alternative would surely have been a Rwanda. Even dirt-poor Bengali Muslims are reluctant to injure their co-religionist Bengalis, even if they are sometimes slapped by the bhodrolok at the end of the rickshaw ride, simply because the poor rickshaw-wallah has shown the “dhrishtota” to ask for an extra taka or two.
Another part of the answer perhaps is that Bengalis are fundamentally a docile (or even timid?) nation, not driven to extremities of mass violence unless under some ferocious provocation. It happened in 1971, and even then it was against an infamous “other” – the Pakistanis. Since then, there has been little finger-pointing across class boundaries.
Yet another explanation might lie in our tropical, third-world fatalism, a resigned acceptance of whatever injustice the Fates might bring round the corner. After all, isn’t that what we’ve known for the last few hundred years – grinding poverty, oppression, hunger, famine? Maybe we are programmed into a cultural acceptance, and endurance, of more and more hardship.
There are ways, of course, that the economics of class inequality soak through into the body politic – in the easy corruption at all levels of society, the bribe-eating petty bourgeois bank official, the shameless clerk at the government office, the countless mastans up and down the land, half of whom would probably have been happy to work at a decent suit-tie 9-to-5 job, but failing that, turn to gangs and guns.
But I’ve always wondered that if the 90% weren’t so docile or so easily led to accept their fates, there’d definitely be more internecine bloodshed, because God knows there was more than enough reason to justify it. I know people in Dhaka (among my friends unfortunately) who whine and moan if they cannot take the car from one place to another, who complain if the AC isn’t working in their bedrooms.
*
So seeing the pictures in the last post makes me wonder as to what the breaking point is. Those with lucky genes, better education, better connections, greater ruthlessness or cunning or corruption are still creaming off the top, while at the bottom the economic pressures get more and more grinding.
Maybe this is the nature of globalization which we’ve seen at work in the last 15 years – everywhere, a privileged, educated elite take away more of the economic pie, and only the crumbs go to the people, if that. Maybe this is the consequence of severe overcrowding in a country that is in reality carrying far more people than is good for it. Here are some numbers to think about. Bangladesh is ranked 94th among countries, in terms of Total Land Area. Comparisons with similar sized countries:
92. Tunisia - 163,610 sq km –1.0 crore population
93. Nepal - 147,181 sq km – 2.7 crore 94. Bangladesh - 143,998 sq km – 14.7 crore
95. Tajikistan - 143,100 sq km – 0.7 crore
96. Greece - 131,957 sq km – 1.1 crore
Even accounting for the greater fertility of the soil in Bangladesh, the greater carrying capacity, something is very amiss here – amiss in terms of resources available to us and amiss in terms of access to them.
The world is becoming a harder place to live in. With environmental changes and increasing resource shortages on a global level, every country needs the most astute and intelligent and savvy leadership to guide them through the difficult decades that lie ahead. I wonder whether our current politicians, in their corrupt selfish blindness, aren’t leading us straight to the edge of the cliff.
The sheer number of 147 million people living in a tiny space is hard enough to begin with. But to make matters worse, we lie next to the ocean. Global warming will cause untold distress in a low-lying country like Bangladesh, to the point where the same 147 million might end up living in a space that is half of what is available now. (The other half will be somewhere under the Bay of Bengal.)
Imagine the streams of refugees flooding north. Imagine the overcrowding for a second. Unless the national boundaries are torn down and overrun like a dam breaking, and our people spill over into India and Burma or take ever more desperate measures to get out, unless the pressure is relieved somehow, there will be no way to contain future explosions of violence and criminality.
There are other sides to this prism too. The government is undoubtedly at fault for mismanaging the power problem. And yet, this could only the beginning of our troubles. We are a newly industrializing country. We need more electricity than ever before, and we need more raw materials and fuel to keep our economy going.
But we are not the only country with such demands. The world’s two biggest nations – China and India, accounting for a full third of humanity – are both industrializing themselves, and much more rapidly than Bangladesh. They are eating up the world’s supply of petroleum and metals at a rate unseen in history. No wonder that the prices of essential commodities – not just oil but also steel, copper and aluminium – have been at record levels globally.
Bangladesh has to compete in the global market for these items. Unless our political leadership is completely focussed and motivated to tackle problems such as these, Bangladesh can expect more paralysis, and far worse violence, in the future. Our politicians must be on the ball all the time, for us to even survive in an unforgiving world that has less tolerance for losers. They don’t know it yet, but the last two days could be just a sign of things to come. Quite literally, a darker and bloodier future.
*
Such massive problems – overcrowding and the environment, keeping the economy and jobs running, keeping the bloody lights on – they are so much bigger than the petty quarrels of BNP, AL, JP or Jamaat. They are so much more urgent than Mujib’er adorsho or Zia’r bani, so much more existential than the trivia of Bangladeshi jatiyotabad, Bangali jatiyotabad, secularism, religious politics. In 10 or 20 years’ time, none of these things will amount to a hill of beans.
When the very wheel of life is threatening to stop because we can no longer afford to supply power to people’s homes, when our factories are shut down and our people have no work, when we are sitting in the dark and sweating in the heat, when the waves are lapping around our waists, when we have millions and millions of refugees from the coast pouring into the already overcrowded cities, very little else will matter.
Sometimes, I fear that the knives and machetes will come out then.
During the last five years current government has not allowed the opposition alliances to gain any upper hand anywhere. Main opposition party and even the 14 opposition party alliance programs were basically toothless in front of a combined effect of governments determined suppression and general lack of popularity.
NewAge Photo
However the events during the last two nights in Dhaka streets have, for the first time, made government look helpless and out of ammunitions. The all powerful RAB, police equipped with newly imported riot gears, paramilitary Bangladesh Rifles were all deployed without much success in quelling the violent street protests. The vulnerability of the government machinery in front of people’s power was exposed.
Although, all what the protesters are doing are not endorsable, these protests are very timely reminder of people’s power.
And these protests are the real grading of governments job over the last five years. At the same time the people in the streets also show us that how an opposition, without people’s involvement and how the movements without the real issues are absolutely powerless and worthless.
Dhaka streets in last couple of days may have seen the ramification of the sins committed in a place called the “Hawa Bhavan” by a hollow headed prince and his evil cohorts.
I hope someday these same people will rise again with a more radical demand. The demand to free the country off the disconnected dynasty of two families.
Couple of weeks ago the mobile court apprehended two persons for running an unauthorized blood bank. One of them was sent to jail because he couldn’t pay a fine of tk 50,000. Would he have been set free he could pay the fine, or rather pay someone a hefty bribe and get away with it?
Most of the blood donors are ‘professional’ – meaning their source of income is donating blood. I only feel empathy for these people who are this desperate to make ends meet. But it was horrific to know that some of the seized bags of blood had blue tint because they weren’t refrigerated properly. They used expired reagents to identify the blood group.
On a separate report in Prothom Alo a pathology/clinit in Rajshahi diagnosed a person’s blood group as B+, where he was actually B-. Imagine that! If B+ was transfused to his body it could’ve been fatal. The Rh incompatibility can kill a person.
How would you feel about going to one of these clinics for treatment?
As for silver lining around the clouds: our DP intern Piya Mukit is working on addressing Medical Negligence through the Law in Bangladesh. Read more about the agenda here…
The following has the first part of the interview of Tareque Rahman who is billed to be the next leader of BNP. I found some of his logical reasoning incomprehensible. However, kudos to him for doing the interview. Such interviews of political leaders are pretty rare in Bangladeshi political context and more leaders from both parties should be able to face such direct questions. Also I thought the interviewer was pretty tough on him.
Choice quotes:
1. “Power problem is a problem in New York as well. When energy price goes up, power problem is natural”
2. Weather is unpredictable, so nothing wrong with Ershad being unpredictable.
3. About price of essential: “Why don’t you tell me why the price is going up? When the GDP is 7%, price will have to go up. You may be complaining, but the farmers are doing fine.
Ramadan Mubarak! We in Bangladesh started yesterday, two days after Saudi and a day after some other places- it never ceases to amaze me why the Muslim world can’t get their act together and start fasting on the same day. I imagined that with ramadan the city would somehow quieten down but it seems the traffic jams start earlier with the mad rash to reach home before iftar. Our office hours have shortened to accomodate for this but my initial thoughts of using the extra time to get housekeeping affairs in order have been firmly put aside. Thank goodness for the advent of the supermarket here- I would not have managed otherwise having already experienced the dual charging system in shops- the desi rate and the foreigner rate. I thought that I was getting a bargain when I paid 40 taka for 5 stems of rajani gandha to discover later when I went to the same shop with a colleague that I should be paying 10 taka! Despite the vast number of shopping malls around the city I still find that bargaining needs to be done and being hopeless at it I have stuck to the safety of Arong when buying clothes, housey knicknacks and even my shampoo.
I experienced my first american styley coffee shop experience and was impressed- unfortunately its about an hour away from where I live so I suspect that I will be sticking to drinking street tea and eating chotputi on Bailly Road which in itself is a treat. There is nothing finer on earth than chai made sold on the footpath.
My work so far has been going really well. I have been roped into a team working on a pilot project to “legally empower” communities who are already working with the Local Government Engineering Department on small scale water projects in 61 out of the 64 districts in Bangladesh. The pilot will take place in one district involving three projects and will run for 12 months. The Asia Foundation has been contracted by the Asia Development Bank (who are the international donors of the LGED projects) to run the pilot and they in turn commissioned ASK. We went on a field visit to Dhamria on the the outskirts of Dhaka to do an initial feasibility study and it was excellent getting hands on experience with the local women. Hopefully I will be able to contribute meanigfully to the project by the time I leave Dhaka and keep in contact with it when I am back in the UK.
ASK also celebrated its 20th anniversary last week and it was a fantastic opportunity to meet all the staff, many who work out of the office in the field, clients, management committee members and founding members. They had a function in the national theatre which involved speaches, dance and drama. Made our local Bangladeshi Association functions in Glasgow seem very amateur!
As for life in the city…I have my up and down days but I think that would be same for anywhere. It rained for 4 days straight last week which brought the first fresh air I have breathed since I got here though it was interesting to see the impact the rain had on so many. Life seemed to grind to a halt for Dhaka people not venturing out unless absolutely necessary and sadly death for many people in other parts of the country and mass flooding.
So far the volatile political situation hasn’t affected me but with ramadan apparently its a relatively peaceful time. Ideas of fun things to do around the city would be great from Dhakaites reading this as well as any leads on yoga classes. Take care y’all.
I was touched by Asif Saleh’s recent piece in the daily Star about the two new generation leaders of Bangladesh Awami League. Undoubtedly very true and thoughtful observation and enough to make one very depressed.
Indeed a new bunch of leadership is developing in both BNP and Awami League. In Awami league case, Saber Hssain Chy, Asaduzzaman Noor, Sohail Taj, a bunch of Sheikh generations including Liton MP, Sk Selim’s sons and definitely Shajib Wajed Joy etc have brought a refreshing air in the politics. People liked their approach to different issues and their demeanor and public speak won them nationwide attention and respect.
On the other hand the hard line BNP has taken throughout this government is generally attributed to a bunch of newbie’s in BNP politics under the leadership of Khaleda Son Tareque. These less polite, occasionally very cunning and cruel and grossly corrupt new generation include Babar, Dulu, Alal, Swapon, Tripti, Mirza Abbas, Goyeswar Roy, Illias Ali, Haris Chy etc. They control hawa Bhavan and almost certainly the prime minister’s office too. Starting from last election, BNP is effectively controlled by these young turks.
And in fact, they, so far, won all the battle against Awami league, including the April 30th dateline and others. Awami League occasionally felt helpless in front of the ruthless tactics of new leadership of BNP especially when in a matter of a week four senior AL leaders were beaten mercilessly in public and made crippled for the time being.
And an irony of fate is that, this hawk younger generation of BNP follows the teachings of a school of older generation Awami League leaders which include Zalil, Amu, Nasim, Tofayel, Maya, Razzak, Sajeda, Motiya, Suranjit etc.
The older ” standing Committee”, gentlemen generation of BNP including B Chy, Saifur Rahman, Col Oli, Shamsul Islam, Moin Khan, Mannan Bhuiyan, MK Anwar etc were totally helpless in front of hawks like Tofayel, Nasim etc. during BNPs 91-96 rule.
There is a general appreciation that with some exceptions, BNP’s 91-96 rule was the most democratic and tolerant of Bangladesh governments and a failure of that government gave birth to these dark hawkish generation of Treque Zia and Haris Chowdhury. And the now helpless hawkish Awami League stalwarts have to take some responsibility for making the seniors of BNP a failure and letting the hawks take over BNP.
The future of Bangladesh democracy is in extreme danger at the hand of the hawks of both side.
To nurture the infant democracy, Bangladesh needs a BNP free of Tareque-Haris, and led by 91-96 like generation and an Awami League led by this new Saber Chy, Noor, Sohail Taj generation, not by the generation of Zalil, Amu or Tofayel. .
One of the things that I have alwasy wondered about - and that I’d like to think is possible - is the creation of a directory of Bangladeshi ex-pats. Wouldn’t it be great if we could have a massive Yellow Pages full of listings of Bangladeshi’s who could provide products, services or other expertise to the rest of us? For instance, just about each and every one of us use auto insurance. I use All State and State Farm. All else being equal [I realize that this could be a tricky hypothesis], would/could we be interested in buying the same from a ’swadeshi’? I realize that many services are local - but many services are not. Insurance and mortgages are two such examples. And as far as service is concerned, would it be possible to have an ‘ebay’ like rating system so that customers can post comments - positive or negative about the service received? I realize that maintaining the database and serving it could take some effort - but from a technical point of view it ought to be a no-brainer!
Extending the thought further, the listing operations could earn a small [nominal] fee for all connections that are made through it (would a Bengali insurance agent in Florida who otherwise would have no chance of getting my business be willing to, in effect, rebate a portion of his fee back and/or pay the listing website a small commission? (I thought about listing fees but most people don’t like to pay unless they can see results). There are infinite variations and improvements possible.
So, what do the budding IT entrepreneurs think? If you think it could be an interesting idea, we can pursue it as a variation of ‘fair trade coffee’ - the idea would be that we, deshis, would engage in fair trade with each other. How many of us know someone who needs immigration related legal services? The Bangla Holud Prishtah could list Bengali attorneys for free [and others for a fee]. And a rating/feedback system could provide ral time Q/A.
Like most things, there are initial development costs that have to be borne. That is where I could possibly be of help. So what do you guys think? I am really looking for the IT entrepreneurs to speak up. Collectively, we have tremendous buying power. Why not aggregate it and see what that can achieve? Maybe the right idea is a buying club [Bangla Buying Club: BBC - I like the name!] and a demand based ‘pull’ technology (instead of the supply based ‘push’ technology).
I’ll shut up now and wait to see who takes the bait ….
Drishtipat local chapter in Canberra, Australia organized a very successful Fundraising event last September 16, 2006 that was attended by about 200 people. The event began with a brief introduction to Drishtipat Australia chapter and DP’s partner organization Centre for Disability in Development; followed by an overview of children with disabilities in Bangladesh. A wonderful cultural program entertained the audience while a much acclaimed Bangla movie ‘Nondito Norokey’ was the after dinner attraction.
We thank all the DP Australia members that worked diligently to produce such a successful event.
We all know about the sad episode of violent storm that pounded the coastal area of Bangladesh on the evening of September 19, 2006. Death toll has reached 85 so far with more than a thousand still missing. Storms and cyclones are not uncommon in Bangladesh and they form over Bay of Bengal in September and October every year and take lives of hundreds and destroy cattle and crops. For caring souls out there, it is tough to simply glance at the news and not have profound empathy on the harsh situation caused by Mother Nature and its effect on so many lives.
Rather conflicting news caught my eyes earlier this evening on the rescues efforts in Bangladesh. In BBC News and some other reports, the headline reads from September 22nd:
The Bangladeshi navy says it has launched its biggest rescue operation ever to search for a missing officer who went missing in a storm this week.
The New Age along with few others on the other hand reports:
Little rescue efforts in 5 days - Five days have passed since a violent storm pounded the country’s coastal areas on Tuesday, but an intensive search for about 1,500 missing fishermen is yet to start with the authorities citing inclement weather and rough seas as the reason.
The world is cruel indeed on how people are treated based on social stature and wealth. Unfortunately, the unequal treatment of “The Haves and the Have Nots” are just not in Bangladesh but also seen in many parts of the world. I highly doubt if a calamity of the scale of hurricane Katrina took place in say Massachusetts or New York instead of a rather poor state of Louisiana, we would have seen the number of death so high.
Today has been the first day of Ramadhan (in most part of North America) – the sacred month for 1.6 billion Muslims all over the world. This month had always been an integral part of our social life in Bangladesh regardless of people’s individual choice of religious practice.
Decades ago when I was a child it meant not going to school for the whole month, shopping for the upcoming Eid, enjoying special iftar menu for the whole month (mmmm the chhola, peaju, dai bara, halim….). Little did we care about the real intentions behind the ritual that called for stanch self control and abstinence from all the earthly transgression during day light (dawn to dusk) – not just restraining from eating and drinking. To a child like me practicing all of that was an everyday event. Life was so full of innocence and harmony back then that it almost seems like a fairy tale that happened some place far far away….
From grade two through six I attended a school in Pathar Ghata, Chittagong that was established more than a century ago by Christian missionaries. My god-fearing parents had no qualm on my and my siblings’ enrolling to a school run by catholic nuns. I had friends in the class with last names like Roy, Dey, Shutradhar as well as Rodriguez, Gonzales or D’Cruz and Barua. I remember going to Durga puja with my friends, being captivated with the ambience, the neatly decorated idol, the kirtans, the special incense and the delicious sweets. My school stood next door to a boys’ school run by catholic priests. The Brothers and Sisters of both schools would arrange for annual ‘fair’ sort of like a Mina Bazaar right before Christmas that we’d attend along with our families. There were some famous temples in Chittagong and other towns in the hilltracks that my father used to take us for visits. We appreciated archeological values, the historical aspects and the beautiful decorations of those temples and devotion of people for their own faith was an uplifting experience. We grew up knowing every faith in the world teaches the same basic concept – respect your fellow humans, love your family, don’t hurt, don’t cheat, don’t lie, be humble…..
I guess we grew up with respect and appreciations for other faiths. I don’t think I can say the same for my little kids. Not only they are being raised in a land that is a world apart from their tradition and heritage, now their faith is something that is being scrutinized (rather wrongfully) every single day in the media. I know as for now my kids are not being affected directly – the friends and neighbors we associate with are very civil and open minded. Her friends and teachers don’t pose any awkward questions when she passes over pepperoni pizza for fish sticks in the school cafeteria. But I wonder how long is it till the media loses its last shred of compassion for a certain faith that they quite easily have began associating with terrorism? How long do we have to reverse this course so that the little ones can grow up in world that’s devoid of ethnic tensions? What can we do to secure that for them?
It’s fall (autumn) … when a young man’s mind turns to falling leaves and other things that are falling as well – such as the fall of the allegedly corrupt Thai regime. Winter is on its way. Time to hunker down and take up defensive positions, or better yet, perhaps, hibernate!
Much has been written about the major backwards step that the coup represents for Thailand. Democracy has been trampled and authoritarianism rules. Might has become right. The US government, that paragon of takers of the high road, has condemned the affront to democracy in no uncertain terms – although, in the usual beltway paradox, Musharraf seems to be Bush’s new best friend. Bad! Bad boys! And friends and scholars alike wonder if the coup is emboldening politically minded officers in Dhaka Cantonment. Danger is in the air!
But just for a moment, for the sheer heck of it, I found myself wondering about the other side. Anything that the Bush administration is so quick to condemn might not be all bad! And given the dysfunctionality of our political system, is martial law the worst thing that could happen to Bangladesh? Could there be such a thing as a temporary, benevolent dictator? Is it possible that the military can function as a true ‘caretaker government’ that does not load the dice and supervises a fair and open election? Is it possible that a caretaker government under the protection of the military, can clean up the constitution and present it to the general populace for ratification? I don’t know the answers – and if I were asked to guess, I would probably be forced to answer ‘no’ to each question – even the first one that I pose. But I would love to hear some other answers. Otherwise, without some new way of thinking, how are we to get out of the corrupt, authoritarian, self-serving and destructive ways of the major political parties?
She was only 21 year old when she killed herself by taking a cyanide pill on this day 74 years ago.
Pritilata Waddedar’s life sound like any other very meritorious student of our time. Aftre doing matriculation from Dr Khastagir girls school in Chittagong, she did her intermediate from Eden college and she stood first in then then combined Dhaka board. After finishing her graduation from Bethune college of calcutta, she returned to Chittagong to start teaching in a local school, where she got involved with master’Da Shurjo Sen and started participating in the freedom struggle against the British. She killed herself after taking the hidden cyanide pill when she was caught after an attack on a white only European club in Pahartali, Chittagong.
A article in prothom-alo today described how little we know of our heros. It is a shame that if you ask 10 girls in a Chittagong streets about kareena Kapoor, each one will know her, however if you then ask who is Pritilata, none of them will have the answer.
NewAge Photo
Pritilata Waddedar’s life sound like any other very meritorious student of our time. Aftre doing matriculation from Dr Khastagir girls school in Chittagong, she did her intermediate from Eden college and she stood first in then then combined Dhaka board. After finishing her graduation from Bethune college of calcutta, she returned to Chittagong to start teaching in a local school, where she got involved with master’Da Shurjo Sen and started participating in the freedom struggle against the British. She killed herself after taking the hidden cyanide pill when she was caught after an attack on a white only European club in Pahartali, Chittagong.