Women Freedom Fighters during the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971: A Geographical Inquiry

The liberation of Bangladesh was achieved through a nine-month long war, in which all patriotic people of the country contributed from their respective positions. The liberation war of Bangladesh is the nation’s essential concern and thus required this type of inquisitive research which will see the history in different lenses. It was epitomized by the army of freedom fighters known as Mukti Bahini (MB) in Bangladesh. Freedom fighters all around the country participated in the war to free the country and stop the violence of the Pakistani force. Besides men freedom fighter women also fought for liberating the mother land but women fighters of Bangladesh are undetermined history. However, the study is important of portraying the bloodstained history of the great struggle of the women freedom fighters. The study tried to explore the distributional pattern of women freedom fighters 1971 in map. Map is crucial visualized factor which populaces easily can recognize. It is historical research and this study is conducted based on a secondary descriptive literature survey by Fisher reading method. This study has produced database based on Google earth and Mouza map, data presented by Table, Figure, Diagram with SPSS. Map and Hot-spot (Getis ord*) analysis also is conducted by Arc-map 10.4.1 where Birangana (women fighters) clustered in Northern region, Women liberation warriors clustered in central region of Bangladesh. There is an im-mense need of serious historical research on the Liberation War of 1971 in 21st century Bangladesh. It will be helpful for the current generation to know the geographical aspect of a nation’s birth.


Background
The Liberation War 1971 of Bangladesh will go down in history as one of the most glorious episodes in human history (Hafsa, 2020). It was embodied by the army of freedom fighters known as Mukti Bahini (MB) in Bangladesh. The freedom fighters played a vital role in liberating the country of Bangladesh 1971. Freedom fighters all around the country participated in the war to free the country and stop the violence of the Pakistani force. The Mukti Bahini or Freedom Fighters, or Liberation Forces; also known as the Bangladesh Forces is a popular Bengali term which refers to the guerrilla resistance movement formed by the Bangladeshi military, paramilitary and civilians during the War of Liberation that transformed East Pakistan into Bangladesh in 1971. An earlier name Mukti Fauj was also used (Rahman, 1993).
A freedom fighter is defined by the government of Bangladesh as "a person who has participated/assisted in the Liberation War of Bangladesh acting to the country's independence between March 26, 1971 andDecember 16, 1971." A gazette notification, signed by President Abdul Hamid, was issued on 8 November 2016 which contains the definition. The definition was specifically spelled out in order to assist in the making of an acceptable and reliable list of freedom fighters across the country. The notification also clarifies the age criterion of a freedom fighter, clearly mandating that at that time of Liberation War the minimum age of person should have been 13 years on March 26, 1971(Star Online Report, 2016. The people of Bangladesh battled a glorious war of independence against the Pakistani occupation forces in 1971. In this Great War the Bengali people fought for long nine months and defeated the well-trained Pakistani forces. Bangladesh became a free country. The people who fought against the Pakistani army and the people who took part in the war effort are called the freedom fighters. Many of the freedom fighters sacrificed their lives for the cause of the motherland (Mamun, 2012).
There is still dispute about the actual number of freedom fighters who contributed to the Liberation War in 1971 as successive governments could not prepare a comprehensive list of them in the past 49 years. The incumbent government is yet to complete its latest move to prepare "authentic list of freedom fighters" as the numbers of freedom fighters provided by successive governments on five different lists varied widely (Alamgir, 2017 However, a well-accepted list of about 3500 person who have played significant role in the liberation war of Bangladesh published in a book titled "Muktijudder pekkapote bakthir obasthan" (Arefin, 1995 (Azad, 2017).
Based on the Bangladesh Ministry of Liberation War Affairs a maximum of twenty-four categories of list has been identified for the freedom fighters of Bangladesh. Among this, only two lists are generalized for the whole nation representing the number of freedom fighters in the country-the Lal Mukti Barta and the Prime Minister Signed List (Lal Muktibarta, 2018) ( Table 1).
The Liberation War of 1971 is a chapter of great pride in the history of Bangladesh. It is just not possible to write down the whole history of this glorious war, simply because there are numerous known and unknown stories and events regarding it. However, this study is crucial of depicting the history of the great struggle of the women freedom fighters. Besides men freedom fighters' women also fought for liberated the motherland. Women freedom fighters play a crucial role of Liberation war of Bangladesh. The study considered Birangana and women liberation warriors as Women freedom fighters 1971. Yet importance's of women freedom fighters of Bangladesh is unfamiliar history. Their contribution to today's Bangladesh was likewise crucial. This study will try to explore about Women freedom fighters during the Liberation war of Bangladesh and their location also represent in map. Map is informative visualize factor which people easily can understand the pattern of women freedom fighters of Bangladesh during Liberation war of 1971. This research paper earnestly studies very crucial points regarding the influences and roles of women freedom fighters in determining planning as well as strategically aspects of the Liberation War of Bangladesh. It will be helpful for the current generation to understand the geographical aspect of a nation's birth. It is a historical research and this study was conducted based on a secondary descriptive literature survey by Fisher method. This study has produced database based on Google earth and Mouza map, data presented by Table,

Aim and Objectives
The broad aim of this study is to determine the Women freedom fighters who struggled during the Liberation War of Bangladesh 1971. To fulfill this study researcher, grasp few objectives. These are; 1) To find out the list of women freedom fighters during the Liberation War of Bangladesh 1971; 2) To develop a comprehensive countrywide geo-database for women freedom fighters of the liberation war of Bangladesh; 3) To generate spatial point patterns for women freedom fighters of the liberation war of Bangladesh; 4) To document and analysis the spatial distributional pattern of the women freedom fighters during the liberation war.

Methodology
The research was conducted to show the distributional pattern of the Women freedom fighters of the liberation war of Bangladesh. To achieve the objectives of the research work, three broad categories of research methods were considered.
In the first phase, the collection of information from different published sources was crucial to researcher the depth of the research work. As the collected data were both qualitative and quantitative as well as being historical evidence, are always subject to dispute, the researcher has gone through an in-depth verification process. The verification process was mainly relying on the presence of the information in multiple sources (mostly from sources published from the government organizations or renounced research organization). The second phase of the research method mainly includes the selection of geospatial tools and techniques to digitalize the collected datasets. The major thrust was to prepare spatial database for the identified women freedom fighters. For this purpose, different GIS and Remote sensing techniques were in operation to produce a geo-database.
The third and final phase of research methodology of this research work includes the analysis and interpretation of the database over the geographical space of the country. Hotspot analysis in Arc-map has been employed to find the concentration zone of the Women freedom fighters. The Getis-ord GI* statistics is used to operate this operation and this operation is automated in Arc-map GIS. This tool identifies statistically significant spatial clusters of high values (hot spots) and low values (cold spots). It creates a new output features class with a z square, p value and confidence level for each feature in the input feature class. However, an outline of the adopted tools and techniques to achieve the research objectives is briefly presented below (Table 2).
Authentic description of the liberation war and, interpretation of the events is essential to understand the past. Historical method is very important in research to identify the cause of an incident. In this research, historical method is significant because there is no alternative to explore the issues of the war of liberation  (Rahman, 2011). Numerous information of liberation war of Bangladesh stocked in these books. Although many books published about liberation war, Bangladesh liberation war documents are complete sources of data. Google scholar plays a vital role in collecting data for this research work. Moreover, several freedom fighters write books, journals, magazines, which were also in consideration. This research work mainly uses deliberate source (based on recorded data). Deliberate sources provide data which have been recorded with the conscious effort to preserve information. This research dependent deliberate sources of data because Museum of liberation war and Ministry of liberation war affairs recorded all types of liberation war related information

Google Maps and Mauza Maps
Google

Spatial Distributional Pattern
The spatial distribution pattern has been vital representation of this research work. The researcher developed point data for the distribution of the freedom fighters were presented by district, e.g., under poly data. These data were presented in maps to show the distributional pattern.

Point Distribution
The information of the Women fighters has been converted to geo-database and categorized under different categories. Due to lack of information, especially, presenting information spatially is really a daunting task. The researcher creates spatial database of point features collected from different deliberate sources, Museum of liberation war and Ministry of liberation war affairs.
The maps reveal a spatial distributional pattern and identify the zone of agglomeration for the Women freedom fighters. General readers could easily make a mental frame of the distribution pattern of the Women freedom fighters. This type of distribution map is very helpful for generalization of the specific events as a whole, thus following the induction method adopted in this research work.
Spatial distribution data of Women freedom fighters (having latitude and longitude data) were run over the geographical space of Bangladesh. As Statistical by product, the analysis produces p values at different part of the country which ranges between 0.001 and 0.005. This is also known as the calculated p-value.
The Getis-ord GI* statistics is used to operate this operation and it creates a new output features class with a z square, p value and confidence level for each feature in the input feature class.

Freedom Fighters (Birangana)
Birangana: The meaning of the term Birangana is "war heroine" (Nayanika Mookherjee, 2017). On 22 December 1971, only few days after victory was achieved (on 16 December 1971), the government of the newly independent state of Bangladesh awarded the women who had been assaulted during the war with the honorary title of "Birangana", meaning "brave woman" and often translated to and associated with "war heroine" (Burden of being a "Birangona", 2017). This was a term coined by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh's founding prime minister, as a way of acknowledging these women's "sacrifice" for the freedom of Bangladesh. The term was meant to pay respect to the women for their sacrifices during wartime. In turn, this prompted activists to coin a new phrase-Nari joddha, or women fighters. It is estimated that more than 200,000 women and girls were systematically raped and tortured by the Pakistan army and their Bangladeshi collaborators during the war. After the war ended thousands of women and girls were rescued from rape camps and Army barracks.
During the Bangladesh War of Independence from Pakistan, women were assaulted as part of the Pakistani Army's war strategy (Rahman, 2011). The ministry of liberation war affairs listed a total of 147 Biranganas around the country. The distribution map of the Biranganas shown in Figure 1 represents that most of the Biranganas are distributed in the Northern half of the country. The list of Birangana also presented in Tabulated form and Histogram in below (District-wise) ( Table 3). Figure 2 shows the distribution of Biranganas of Bangladesh 1971 which reflected the norther region more weighted than southern region. It also reflected the torture of Pakistani army during this period. Figure 3 represents the hot-spot

Conclusion
Bangladesh is celebrating 50 years of independence, but there is no portrait of the distribution of women freedom fighters. This study aims to fill that gap by depicting the distributional pattern of women freedom fighters of Bangladesh.
The study also unearthed the distributional pattern of Birangana agglomerated Northern region, which represents that the brutality of Pakistani army is higher in northern region of Bangladesh and Women liberation warriors agglomerated Central region (Dhaka region, capital of Bangladesh) on 99% confidence level. The Birangana and women liberation warriors are lumped together in this study. These two groups are referred to as "women freedom fighters" since they both contributed to and "sacrificed" for Bangladesh's liberation war. The researchers encountered numerous limitations when conducting this study, including a lack of data, a change in the place name, and a lack of a location name. This research will have a significant impact on future generations.

Conflicts of Interest
The author declares no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.