Kamla Bhasin

Bhasin died on 25 September 2021 at the age of 75 due to cancer.

"India needs a cultural revolution", said Bhasin. She resented that South Asia's women are shackled by a myriad of social customs and beliefs that embrace and straddle the patriarchy. "Often religion is used as a shield to justify patriarchy. When you question something, you are told, ‘yeh toh hamara sanskar hai, riwaaj hai (This is our culture, our traditions)'. And when this is done, it means logic has ended, belief has come in.", she told The Hindu in a 2013 interview.

She wrote 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 envisioned a feminist movement that transcends class, borders and other binary social divisions. She was an integral part of the One Billion Rising movement in South Asia. She 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.

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 quit her job at the UN in 2002, to work full-time on her feminist network, Sangat which she had been working on for a while. She then, in association with Sangat, organized workshops on understanding feminist theory and develop a feminist awakening. The organization has organized the "Sangat Month Long Course" since 1984, helping more than 650 women in South Asia develop a better understanding of gender, poverty, social justice, sustainable development, peace, democracy and human rights. "The method of our capacity building course is multi-dimensional and participatory. For one month, the participants try and understand what patriarchy is." she said.

After that, she started working with the Food and Agriculture Organization, and was assigned to identify innovative development work in Asian countries and create networks between people –across countries. She lamented later that at that time, in the 70s when the subcontinent was gripped in mutual animosity and war, it was difficult to create networks and come together as South Asians. She thus, moved to Bangladesh in 1976 and worked with Gonoshasthaya Kendra, a rural public health organization. It was where she met Zafrullah Chowdhury, a Bangladeshi public health worker and activist, who changed her perspective about a lot of things. She later described him as one of the few men who thought 'out of the box' in South Asia.

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.