Kamla Bhasin: Feminist Icon, Poet & Author Passes Away

Kamla Bhasin (24 April 1946 – 25 September 2021) was an Indian developmental feminist activist, poet, author and social scientist. Bhasin's work, that began in 1970, focused on gender, education, human development and the media. She lived in New Delhi, India. She was best known for her work with Sangat - A Feminist Network and for her poem Kyunki main ladki hoon, mujhe padhna hai. In 1995, she recited a refurbished, feminist version of the popular poem Azadi (Freedom) in a conference. 

She was also the South Asia coordinator of One Billion Rising.She resigned from her job at the U.N. in 2002, to work with Sangat, of which she was a founder member and adviser. She believed in a form of advocacy that combines feminist theory and community action. She worked with underprivileged women from tribal and working communities, often using posters, plays and other non literary methods to get through to communities with low literacy rates. She had always maintained that in order to usher effective change, sloganeering must be accompanied by community mobilization.She called herself 'The Midnight Generation', a reference to the generation of Indians born around the time of independence, 'at the stroke of the midnight hour..'. She was the fourth of six siblings. Her father was a doctor in Rajasthan. She grew up around villages in India and it helped her form an understanding about women's issues in villages in India. This experience would be instrumental in her life and future career. She went to a government university for her bachelor's and masters'. She later said that she found the experience uninspiring and graduated with second division.

She has also written books and booklets about understanding patriarchy and gender, that have been translated into near about 30 languages. These are now used by many NGOs to help people understand gender issues. Her book, Laughing Matters, that she co-authored with Bindia Thapar, first published in 2005 was republished in 2013 and now has a Hindi version (Hasna Toh Sangharsho Mein Bhi Zaroori Hai), Feminism & Its Relevance in South Asia. Other important writings by her include: Borders & Boundaries: Women in India's Partition, Understanding Gender, What Is Patriarchy? In her writings and politics, she envisions a feminist movement that transcends class, borders and other binary social divisions. She has been an integral part of the One Billion Rising movement in South Asia. She recently went to Nepal to flag off the 2017 edition of the movement in Kathmandu, Nepal. At a 2013 One Billion Rising event in New Delhi, she recited her famous Azadi poem to much acclaim and public participation.

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