Foreword  ix

Preface: A Lot of History, a Severe History  xv

Acknowledgments  xxi

Introduction: The "Looking-Glass Border"  1

Part I

1. The Month of Mourning and the Languid Floodwaters: The Weave of National History  31

2. We Would Rather Have Shaak (Greens) Than Murgi (Chicken) Polao: The Archiving of the Birangona  47

3. Bringing Out the Snake: Khota (Scorn) and the Public Secrecy of Sexual Violence  67

4. A Mine of Thieves: Interrogting Local Politics  91

5. My Own Imagination in My Own Body: Embodied Transgressions in the Everyday  107

Part II

6. Mingling in Society: Rehabilitation Program and Re-membering the Raped Woman  129

7. The Absent Piece of Skin: Gendered, Racialized, and Territorial Inscriptions of Sexual Violence during the Bangladesh War  159

8. Imagining the War Heroine: Examination of State, Press, Literary, Visual, and Human Rights Accounts, 1971–2001  177

9. Subjectivities of War Heroines: Victim, Agent, Traitor?  228

Part III

Conclusion. The Truth is Tough: Human Rights and the Politics of Transforming Experiences of Wartime Rape "Trauma" into Public Memories  251

Postscript: From 2001 until 2013  264

Notes  277

Glossary  291

References  293

Index  309

Veena Das

"The Spectral Wound is an exceptional book. It has thoroughly explored its subject from every conceivable angle in such a way as to give it a real intellectual richness." — Nardina Kaur, Economic & Political Weekly

"It is a pleasure to review books that offer an innovative reading of important areas of recent scholarship. Nayanika Mookherjee’s book throws an epistemic challenge to previous authors and interpretations on the subject." — Rachana Chakraborty, Social History

"Mookerjee's exemplary and closely argued The Spectral Wound highlights the central conundrum of making wartime rapes public: heroism, implied and acknowledged by the designation birangona, can only be acquired by making your shame public....[An] uncommonly complex and delicately observed study..." — Ritu Menon, Women's Review of Books

"[Mookherjee] asks, ‘What would it mean for the politics of identifying wartime rape if we were to highlight how the raped woman folds the experience of sexual violence into her daily socialities, rather than identifying her as a horrific wound?’ That is the central question of this powerful and perceptive book." — Michael Lambek, Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute

"I would recommend Spectral Wound if issues of women’s history, resilience and narrative are of interest. It is a fascinating (if challenging) read that provides a discerning exploration of a convoluted, tragic, and largely unheeded episode in South Asian history." — Margot Wilson, Pacific Affairs

"Critical, reflective, and transformative to our understanding of gender violence, memory, and recuperation, Mookherjee’s extraordinary ethnography is undoubtedly essential reading for scholars and students of feminist theory, anthropology, Bangladesh, and South Asia studies." — Elora Halim Chowdhury, Journal of Asian Studies

"Engaging and lucidly written, The Spectral Wound raises a host of theoretical and ethical considerations. How might we re-conceptualize the experience of wartime rape without reducing survivor subjectivities to their “wounds?” To whom is the feminist activist accountable? . . . This thoughtful and provocative text calls on the reader to revisit such dilemmas instead of taking the answers for granted." — Dina M. Siddiqi, International Feminist Journal of Politics

"Nayanika Mookherjee’s research is important as a testimonial, a guide, and as a recovery of the individual experiences of those raped in 1971." — Maitreyi, Dhaka Tribune

"The Spectral Wound is an exceptional book. It has thoroughly explored its subject from every conceivable angle in such a way as to give it a real intellectual richness." —Nardina Kaur, Economic & Political Weekly

"It is a pleasure to review books that offer an innovative reading of important areas of recent scholarship. Nayanika Mookherjee’s book throws an epistemic challenge to previous authors and interpretations on the subject." —Rachana Chakraborty, Social History

"Mookerjee's exemplary and closely argued The Spectral Wound highlights the central conundrum of making wartime rapes public: heroism, implied and acknowledged by the designation birangona, can only be acquired by making your shame public....[An] uncommonly complex and delicately observed study..." —Ritu Menon, Women's Review of Books

"[Mookherjee] asks, ‘What would it mean for the politics of identifying wartime rape if we were to highlight how the raped woman folds the experience of sexual violence into her daily socialities, rather than identifying her as a horrific wound?’ That is the central question of this powerful and perceptive book." —Michael Lambek, Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute

"I would recommend Spectral Wound if issues of women’s history, resilience and narrative are of interest. It is a fascinating (if challenging) read that provides a discerning exploration of a convoluted, tragic, and largely unheeded episode in South Asian history." —Margot Wilson, Pacific Affairs

"Critical, reflective, and transformative to our understanding of gender violence, memory, and recuperation, Mookherjee’s extraordinary ethnography is undoubtedly essential reading for scholars and students of feminist theory, anthropology, Bangladesh, and South Asia studies." —Elora Halim Chowdhury, Journal of Asian Studies

"Engaging and lucidly written, The Spectral Wound raises a host of theoretical and ethical considerations. How might we re-conceptualize the experience of wartime rape without reducing survivor subjectivities to their “wounds?” To whom is the feminist activist accountable? . . . This thoughtful and provocative text calls on the reader to revisit such dilemmas instead of taking the answers for granted." —Dina M. Siddiqi, International Feminist Journal of Politics

"Nayanika Mookherjee’s research is important as a testimonial, a guide, and as a recovery of the individual experiences of those raped in 1971." —Maitreyi, Dhaka Tribune

"Nayanika Mookherjee has made visible a scene of gendered violence in the Bangladesh War of Liberation that travels beyond its specific context to historical, theoretical, and lived realities that are global in range and scope."  — Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, author of, An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization

"Nayanika Mookherjee has produced a brilliant profile of a society grappling with the impact of war centered on rape and its memory. Dealing with rape in war is a political act and memories serve many causes, from the nationalist to the personal. Mookherjee looks at the issue through the lenses of class, culture, and politics, making it one of the most comprehensive and perceptive studies available, as she investigates from within what it means to become an outsider and the socio-political mechanisms that make it happen."  — Afsan Chowdhury, editor of, Bangladesh 1971

"What happens when a moment of personal violation becomes appropriated as part of the narrative of a new collectivity? In a subtle and multifaceted analysis, Nayanika Mookherjee tracks the consequences, both personal and political, of acts of sexual violence that refuse to be forgotten four decades on from the war of independence."  — Jonathan Spencer, coauthor of, Checkpoint, Temple, Church and Mosque: A Collaborative Ethnography of War and Peace

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