Remembering Our Women of July Uprising

While mainstream history often overlooks women’s contributions to protecting and advocating for their rights as citizens of Bangladesh alongside men, women’s participation in the July Uprising once again demonstrated that they have always been active practitioners of their human rights rather than passive beneficiaries of them. From the anti-colonial struggle to the Language Movement, the Liberation War, and various democratic movements, Bangladeshi women have repeatedly entered public life through broader struggles for justice. History shows that nationalist movements often become spaces where women develop political consciousness, solidarity, and leadership. The July Uprising continued this historical pattern. Therefore, the second anniversary of the July Uprising is not only an occasion to reflect on a historic political transformation but also an opportunity to recognise a defining chapter in Bangladesh’s women’s movement that should never be overlooked. Remembering women as active practitioners of human rights is not merely about giving them credit; it is about understanding that democracy becomes stronger when women’s political participation is recognised as a matter of rights rather than as an exceptional contribution during times of crisis.
 
Looking back at how it all began, female students from universities, colleges, and schools across the country raised their voices strongly against what they believed to be the unfair treatment of protesters by the former Awami League government, making their role in the uprising impossible to ignore. Student activist Umama Fatema persuaded a large number of female students at the University of Dhaka to join the movement. She later stated that she had not realised how far the protest would spread until it spread throughout the country. For this reason, she strongly believes that women transformed the movement into a people’s revolution. She also stated that without their participation, the uprising would not have been possible.


From participating in peaceful processions to demanding political change and organising marches while protecting themselves from violence, women in the July Uprising exercised several fundamental human rights. They exercised the right to freedom of opinion and expression under Article 19 of the UDHR, the right to peaceful assembly and association under Article 20, the right to equality and dignity under Article 1, and the right to freedom from discrimination under Article 2 by asserting their equal political rights alongside men. These were not new rights suddenly claimed during the July Uprising. Bangladeshi women had exercised these same rights during the anti-colonial movement, the Language Movement, and the struggle against West Pakistani rule. In this sense, the July Uprising stands as another chapter in the long history of Bangladeshi women exercising their human rights through political struggle.

Yet history also reminds us of a painful reality. Although women have repeatedly stood at the forefront of national movements, their contributions have too often faded from public memory once those movements achieved their immediate goals. As the second anniversary of the July Uprising is observed, remembering women’s courage should not simply be an act of gratitude but an act of historical justice. If we celebrate the uprising while allowing women who helped shape it to disappear from its narrative, we risk repeating the very pattern that history has imposed on generations of Bangladeshi women. Their voices, sacrifices and leadership deserve to remain not only in our collective memories but also in the nation’s historical record, because a history that forgets its women can never tell the whole story of its struggle for freedom and human rights.