The women of Bagha Para

Today my heart is uplifted as I read Nicholas Kristof’s article in the New York Times where he talks about the women of Bangladesh when discussing child poverty in the US.

(What Can Biden’s Plan Do for Poverty? Look to Bangladesh.

As that nation turns 50, its surprising success offers lessons about investing in the most marginalized...) https://www.nytimes.com/.../biden-child-poverty...

I remember the visit to my ancestral village more than a decade ago. I saw in real time women in Bagha Para, where men were so respectful to their women folk. The women were entrepreneurial, young girls were going to school....Now the world is watching how our country Bangladesh has become an example of true development- respecting women, giving them education so that the nation may thrive....

For me it was a real privilege - getting an opportunity to visit a village in northern Bangladesh. In 2009 when I was asked if I would like to visit a village in Bogra, I had mumbled. All because in my mind I couldn't brave the clogged traffic that we needed to go through to get out of Dhaka city. But then I realized it would be interesting to see my paternal ancestral land after a very long time. I remember when we were young we used to go to Bogra for Eid celebration. All my cousins would be there and how sweetly we would hide our Eid clothing from each other - because it should be a surprise for everyone to see our special dresses on the Eid day morning for the first time. Memories of meeting all these relatives and other precious memories flashed back to me and I became nostalgic. And then I jumped on the idea of going to Bogra.

Indeed, the traffic jam was everywhere and I was quietly talking to myself - wish I hadn’t felt so nostalgic! Gradually, as we were leaving Dhaka city behind, all the tall buildings were blurring with the speed of the car. The beautiful greenery on the roadsides ...blue sky......it was so refreshing! My good-feeling moments kept on accelerating, even though we were going, not to my grandfather’s home where we would come for our Eid celebration, but a village from where my grandfather’s ancestors came.

Here we were in this beautiful clean village. It was such a pleasure to learn that women have their own bank accounts here. They showed us how they harvest and store high quality seeds. I was amazed to see how they valued education for their children. They send their daughters and sons to school in the morning and hire private tutors for their sons and daughters too. These village women, without any education ... how savvy they are with their mobile phones- they communicate using their mobile phone with their clients from different parts of the country. These women have an amazing sense of art in running their own household, their high-quality seed business and then, with the surplus money, growing vegetables and fruits, and raising chickens and goats.

The day we came to Bagha para village, it was their regular monthly congregation day for the villagers. I noticed that there was no separate entrance for women as “sisters’ entrance” or a very tall separation wall between men and women that could almost touch the sky. Men and women were sitting side by side. Then the time came for people to say their names. A voice struck me as I heard an elderly man saying out his name and without any inhibition introducing himself as the Sri Mongol Shomiti chairperson's husband. A man proud of his wife’s social status!

I don’t know whether there are more villages where literacy rates are still low and modernization is yet to arrive, but in more and more villages, the women are now doing the talking and the men are listening….