Kamla Bhasin (24 April 1946 – 25 September 2021) was an Indian feminist activist, author, poet and social scientist. For half a century she worked on gender, development and peace across South Asia, first with the United Nations and then through Sangat, the feminist network she founded. Her short, plainly written books on patriarchy and gender have been translated into dozens of languages, and her songs and slogans are sung at women’s gatherings throughout the region.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Kamla Bhasin |
| Born | 24 April 1946, Shahidanwali, Punjab (now in Pakistan) |
| Died | 25 September 2021 (aged 75), New Delhi, India |
| Occupation | Feminist activist, writer, trainer |
| Known for | Sangat; Jagori; One Billion Rising in South Asia |
| Education | University of Rajasthan (M.A. Economics); University of Münster |
| Children | 2 |
Early Life
Bhasin was born a year before Partition in a village in what became Pakistan and called herself one of the “midnight generation”. Her father was a doctor in government service in Rajasthan, and she grew up in its villages and small towns, playing with boys and climbing trees, a freedom she later said shaped her. She took a master’s degree in economics in Jaipur and studied the sociology of development at Münster in West Germany on a fellowship, then taught for a year at a German centre for development workers.
Career
She returned to India in the early 1970s to work with Seva Mandir, a voluntary organisation in Udaipur, on drought relief and village organising. There she came to see that caste and gender determined who benefited from development.
From 1976 to 2001 she worked for the Food and Agriculture Organization, based in Bangkok and then New Delhi, running a programme that brought together activists and development workers from across Asia for training and exchange. Many of the region’s women’s organisations trace friendships and ideas to these workshops.
In 1984 she was a founder of Jagori, a women’s resource and training centre in Delhi. In 1998 she started Sangat, a South Asian feminist network whose month-long courses on gender, human rights and peace have trained activists from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. She left the United Nations to run it full time. She was also the South Asia coordinator of One Billion Rising, the global campaign against violence against women.
Bhasin believed that ideas should be put in language anyone could understand. Her booklets What Is Patriarchy?, Understanding Gender and Exploring Masculinity use questions and answers and everyday examples. With Ritu Menon she wrote Borders and Boundaries (1998), a study of women’s experiences of Partition. She wrote nursery rhymes in which fathers cook and girls play, posters, and scores of songs set to folk tunes. She adapted the chant of “Azadi”, which she had heard from feminists in Pakistan, into a call for freedom from patriarchy, hunger and violence, and it became one of the best-known slogans in Indian protest.
Views
She described patriarchy as a system that also damages men and insisted that feminism was a struggle between two ways of thinking, not between men and women. She objected to the idea that a raped woman has lost her honour, asking why a community’s honour should be placed in a woman’s body.
Personal Life
Her marriage ended in separation. Her daughter, Meeto, died in 2006; her son, who has cerebral palsy, lived with her. She died of cancer in Delhi on 25 September 2021.
Frequently Asked Questions
When and where was Kamla Bhasin born?
Kamla Bhasin was born on 24 April 1946 in Shahidanwali, Punjab (now in Pakistan).
When did Kamla Bhasin die?
Died: 25 September 2021 (aged 75), New Delhi, India.
What is Kamla Bhasin known for?
Known for: Sangat; Jagori; One Billion Rising in South Asia.
Featured image: Kamla Bhasin at the Dhaka Lit Fest, November 2017. Photo by Hasive, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
