In 1996, Bangladesh celebrated its 25th anniversary. When the country became independent from Pakistan in 1971, it proclaimed itself a parliamentary democracy with four goals—democracy, secularism, socialism, and nationalism. This comprehensive introduction to Bangladesh's history, polity, economy, and society reassesses its successes and failures in reaching these goals after a quarter century of nationhood. Craig Baxter traces the development of national identity in the region, first as part of India and then of Pakistan, and the slow evolution toward statehood. He also explores the formative periods of Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, and British government that preceded Pakistani rule and subsequent independence. Anyone wishing to understand this poor, populous, but ambitious young nation will find this book an invaluable reference.

The Sexual Violence and Impunity in South Asia research project (coordinated by Zubaan and supported by the International Development Research Centre) brings together, for the first time in the South Asian region, a vast body of research on this important, and yet silenced, subject. Six country volumes (one each on Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and two on India, as well as two standalone volumes) comprising over 50 research papers and two book-length studies, detail the histories of sexual violence and look at the systemic, institutional, societal, individual and community structures that work together to ensure that impunity for perpetrators is more or less inbuilt. As many of the authors argue, the very nature and conditions of sexual violence in the South Asian region lend themselves to a silencing process, or, at a minimum, a reluctance to address it head on, something that may at least partially explain why accountability for sexual violence remains such a distant horizon. This volume focuses on Bangladesh, a nation born in 1971, in a birth that was as marked by bloodshed as it was by sexual violence. The history of widespread sexual violence, and incidents of sexual slavery, as well as the absence of accountability for the perpetrators, is by now well known. The essays here address the structural dynamics of impunity at the individual and societal levels, looking not only at the conditions that go into its creation, but also the elements that fuel it. They ask what helps it to become so embedded and point to its human, global and national costs. Together they explore the ways in which the women's movement and feminist practice have worked to demand accountability and recognition for the victims and survivors of sexual violence, challenging the impunities embedded in the patriarchal structures of Bangladeshi society. In doing so, they bear witness to the continuing efforts of women's groups in Bangladesh to give this crucial issue the attention that it deserves, for without that, justice for victims and survivors will remain elusive.

The Emergence of Bangladesh analyses and celebrates the first 50 years of Bangladesh as a nation, bringing insights from key scholars in Bangladeshi studies to an international audience, as well as ‘bringing home’ to a domestic audience the work of some of the nation’s greatest intellectual exports, the Bangladeshi scholars who have made a mark in their field of study in academia. The book offers unique coverage of the battlegrounds on which the founding of the new nation was fought, including language, power and religion, and provides unique insight into some of the hot spots that continue to shape the development of the nation: the issues of gender, culture, ethnicity, governance, the economy and the army. Those with an interest in understanding the past or present Bangladesh will find this a trove of frank and readable analysis.