Sufia Kamal (1911–1999) was a poet, activist, and cultural leader whose life and work helped shape the foundation of feminist and nationalist movements in Bangladesh. Her poetry and political organizing were deeply intertwined, each strengthening the other in a lifelong struggle for justice, dignity, and liberation.
She began publishing in the 1920s, defying expectations placed on Muslim women of her time by writing publicly in Bangla. Her first collection of poetry, Sanjher Maya (1938), was praised by both Kazi Nazrul Islam and Rabindranath Tagore. Her writing spoke to the everyday experiences of women, the pain of colonialism, and the longing for collective freedom.
In 1947, Sufia Kamal became the founding editor of Begum, the first women’s weekly magazine in Bengali. The publication became a vital platform for women’s voices in literature, journalism, and social commentary. In 1970, she helped establish the Bangladesh Mahila Parishad, which grew into the largest women’s rights organization in the country. Through it, she mobilized women around issues of legal reform, education, and political representation.
She played an active role in the Language Movement of 1952, the mass uprisings of 1969, and supported the Liberation War of 1971 by sheltering freedom fighters and refusing to submit to pressure from the Pakistani military. After independence, she remained politically engaged, consistently advocating for democracy, secularism, and gender justice during times of military rule and rising fundamentalism.
Sufia Kamal’s feminism was deeply rooted in the everyday realities of Bengali women. She rejected state awards under repressive regimes and never stopped demanding that the promises of liberation include women. In death, as in life, she broke barriers, becoming the first woman in Bangladesh to receive a state funeral with full honors.
To remember Sufia Kamal is to remember that resistance takes many forms: poetry, organizing, refusal, and care. Her legacy is a living archive of feminist possibility.
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Bangladesh Feminist Archives 