They had left their village homes to join the class struggle.

They were young, some of them were of college-going age, most were school students. Some were, so to speak, "born" to the party. Communist party members were frequent visitors (albeit clandestine visitors) to their homes which acted as party 'shelters.' As one woman put it of a Party member, when he came to our home he would call us all - mother, brother's wife, elder sister, brother - and chat. About political things, social, economic things, all sorts of things. In other cases, family members - an elder brother, an uncle, a cousin brother - were themselves committed party members.

Another woman said of her family, there were no restrictions. We could do what we thought best. A third woman who was already-married when she began working for the Party, said: my husband never said "no" to my party activities. But for others, it wasn't easy. Daughters wanting to go into politics, and that too underground politics? Never. A father severely beat his daughter. An elder brother, whose two sisters had slipped away to go and see for themselves an underground party meeting, called members of the extended family over. After the huge family meeting ended, the sisters were beaten by their cousin brothers.

The women rebelled. One young woman (in her early teens) whose marriage was being hurriedly arranged, left home and went off to the Communist Party-controlled "free" zone. Another left home and contacted Party members. However, in the case of another woman it was very different. She was forced to leave home when the Awami League's para-military forces, the Rakkhi Bahini dowsed their home with petrol and set fire to it. Party members had been frequent visitors there. It was 1973.

These women worked mostly as Political Comissars, doing organisational work. They moved from one village to another, lived in party 'shelters', talked to the women of those homes, raised the issue of discrimination within the family, conducted study circles, held group discussions where both village men and women would be present. They talked about crop prices, exorbitant interest rates, low wages... About the necessity of seizing state power to change poor people's lives through revolutionary means.

Some took part in armed conflicts. One such woman said, life was very tough. We had to sit quiet during the day. We would shit in pots (bodna). We had to march, night after night. Sometimes twenty miles, sometimes thirty miles. We would run to carry out operations. Afterwards, we ran back to our bases. We studied during the day, we wrote letters to maintain contacts. Sometimes we drew posters all daylong.

Two women were chiefly couriers, one of them also cooked for Party members.

Another woman trained to become a nurse. Party members needing medical attention were later sent to her.

A woman whose son had been a party member, who had been tremendously popular and had died in very violent circumstances, spoke of how she had raised her children and also supported the Party: I had eight children, he was the eldest. After his father was killed in 1971, it was very difficult to survive. We would eat boiled wheat, boiled grams. He would often bring his party comrades over, I would give them food first, later we would eat whatever was left. I raised my children from selling cow-milk. A male Party comrade said, she was the sort of mother we read about in novels. She was the Party's mother.

Most of the women married party comrades. Mutual likings had to be vetted by the Party. Often conditions were attached: a year's separation, no letters, visits but only in the presence of other comrades. Weddings were meant to be simple affairs: maybe in a 'shelter' home, a few local party comrades present, signing on a piece of paper which belonged to the Party. A handshake, an exchange of flower garlands. Maybe a meal afterwards. But some weddings - maybe that of a party leader - were extravagant. Buying saris, killing a goat. Flowers for the bridal night. It was the village people's wish, so it was said. When children were born to party comrades, the Party would ask parents whether they wanted the child to be raised among the poor, or by the parents themselves. For the women, it was one of the most difficult decisions.

In late 1979, the Party disavowed armed struggle. Women comrades were asked to return to their families, or to marry and settle down. The Party's decision was communicated via word of mouth, at local levels. Some women think there was no other option since the party was organizationally shattered, with many of its members either dead, or imprisoned. One of the women (whose portrait is not a part of this exhibition) put it thus: the decision was right. For those times. For many women, returning to their families was no option. If the Party had not taken the role it did, women comrades would either have been killed, or forced into prostitution. The Party policy of armed struggle, of annihilation of class enemies meant... we had created enemies in our own villages. Whether the decision was right or not, is still an open question.

Now. Twenty-five years later. One of the women is a school teacher, two work in NGOs, one is a nurse, another is a petty cloth and fish trader, some are housewives. Some are members of the Workers Party, others have stayed away from politics. Twenty-five years later. 'The class enemy line was not right, we made enemies needlessly.' 'Until I came to know them, I was fearful of them. My fear disappeared after I read those books from China, after I got to know them, chatted with them.' 'Underground politics led to the death of many party comrades, so many brilliant young men died.' 'I joined the Party because I believed women would become emancipated, no one could tell us what to do any longer.' 'Even if both husband and wife are Party members, areas of inequality remain. Probably that has to do with the whole Party's ideas.' 'If my son wishes to do politics, even underground politics, no... I will not object. Not even if he dies.' 'No, I have not joined any party, I do not wish to do the politics of extortionism (chandabaji).' 'I don't blame anyone for my son's death. It is my misfortune.' 'Nowadays, I worry about about raising cow-and-goat, mending quilts, wondering how to save money, get my daughetr married off. But these worries have to do with survival, not because I wish to become a moneylender.'

This exhibition - portraits, accompanying text - is part of a larger work of historical reconstruction of the role of Naxal women activists in Bangladesh. The interviews were taken and transcribed by Nesar Ahmed, himself an underground activist. The interviews and portraits, along with several articles, will be published shortly by Mokabela/Drik in book form. Documentation (photographic, oral) helps to record the presence of women in the Naxalite movement in Bangladesh, their lived realities, their thoughts and beliefs. This is important because in existing traditions of history-writing in Bangladesh, communist and otherwise, the `revolutionary' subject as a historical figure is undeniably male.

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1.1 In 1970 the East Pakistan Communist Party, Marxist-Leninist presented itself as the East Pakistani counterpart of the West Bengali Naxalites. After committing itself to a programme of organizing guerrilla actions against class enemies in the countryside, the Party went underground. Purbo Bangla Communist Party, Marxist-Leninist, was also committed to a similar political program of armed struggle; in popular usage, its members were also known as 'Nokshali'.