Priya Saha is a women’s and human rights activist, founder of a human rights organization, publisher and editor of a Bengali newspaper, columnist, and researcher.She is from Bangladesh and is now in exile in the United States as a result of her outspokenness about minority persecution in Bangladesh under US President Donald Trump. She was invited by the state department to talk at the 2nd Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom on July 16-18, 2019. And she got an opportunity to meet with the president as a persecuted religious lady. Then the Bangladeshi Islamist community, government, and radical groups reacted seriously, so she can’t go back. Now she is working to get recognition from the US Congress of the Bangladesh Genocide of 1971.
Priya Saha was born on June 30, 1965, in Pirojpur, Bangladesh, and was raised in a home that was both culturally and religiously advanced, allowing her to think and develop to her full potential. The folks of Saha’s little village on the Baleshwar River’s bank were friendly. She spent my youth running for miles down the riverbed. Her mother was a politically involved homemaker, while her father was a social activist. She has a younger sister and brother, as well as two older brothers. She is currently residing in the United States as an exile. She has been the founder, executive director, and founder of the NGO SHAREE since its inception in December 1999. Her main focus is on lobbying and advocacy campaigns for Bangladesh’s poor and disadvantaged people, notably Dalits and minorities, in order to promote and protect their human rights. Her mother was a courageous woman who insisted on all of her siblings receiving an education so that they might fight injustice and evil. When she was a teenager, she began rebelling against the unjust and persistent mistreatment of her religious minority community. She started spending more time outside the house, meeting with local women and girls to share her thoughts, desires, and feelings, as well as critique unfair situations. She started the “Biswas Bari Somobay Samitee,” a small women’s cooperative, when she was 15 years old. To register this cooperative, she had to go 14 miles. While setting up small loans and savings accounts for the cooperative, she discovered what it felt like to be financially self-sufficient. As part of the process, she began to search within herself. Saha graduated from high school and got enrolled into Dhaka’s Eden Mohila College. She focused on her study and became engaged in student politics during her undergraduate years. She began her master’s degree in Economics at Dhaka University after completing her undergraduate studies. She was also interested in student politics at the time. In a military coup in 1982, President Lieutenant General Hussain Mohammed Ershad seized power and ruled Bangladesh under martial law until 1985. A democratic government was the goal of a student political movement. They staged a number of protests, processions, and hunger strikes in opposition to the tyranny. In the Dhaka University Central Students’ Union election, She ran for the position of social welfare secretary for the female residential hall. In attempt to reintegrate into the democratic system, she became involved in the student protest movement in the 1990s. Ershad declared Islam to be Bangladesh’s official religion in 1988. In response to the proclamation, the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council was formed to protect the human rights of religious and ethnic minorities and advocate for a secular, democratic Bangladesh. She has been a member of the group from its establishment and was named Organizing Secretary in 2014.
She went to work as an official for World Concern, an American non-profit, in Bangladesh after finishing her master’s degree at Dhaka University.”
In 1999, she launched the Rural Self-Help Association via Education and Entrepreneurship (SHAREE). It engages in lobbying and advocacy on behalf of underprivileged and marginalized Dalit and minority community people in order to advance and/or protect their human rights. Among the slum/village-based organizations I formed to empower Dalits were the Bangladesh Dalit Panchayat Forum, the Dalit Women’s Movement in Bangladesh, and the Bangladesh Dalit and Minority Human Rights Media Defender Forum. The organizations were always willing to assist Dalit and women’s groups that were having difficulty getting their voices heard on a local level.
To provide individuals with less power a chance to be heard, she founded Dalit Kantha (Voice of Dalit) (dalitkantha.com.bd), a monthly Bengali publication with print and online editions, and the Bangladesh Journal of Minorities, which is read all over the world.
During the general election in Bangladesh in 2001, a Islamist fundamentalist-backed administration came to power, and religious minorities were once again victims of brutality for 94 days. She went to three villages in LalMohon Bhola with journalists from Prothom Alo and Daily Star, where the Islamist organization raped hundreds of religious minority women. Hundreds of religious minority women were raped by the Islamist gang. I also housed Shefali Rani Sarker, a rape victim, at her home for six months.
Population Census in Relation to National Voter List (Proposal Writing, Data Management, and Advisor (Edited) by Prof. Abul Barkat) is one of her collaborative projects with professional groups and individuals.
An Overview of the Socio-Economic Situation of the Cobbler Community in Dhaka City (an Untouchable Class in Our Society) (Priya Saha & Rathindranath Paul)
The Scope of a Study on Improving Dalit Community Access to Justice through Human Rights Education in Bangladesh ( Gayanath Sarkr Phd and Preobala Biswas)
The Status of Women in Bangladesh’s Extremely Poor and Socially Excluded Dalit Communities: A Sociological Study with the Bangladesh Government’s Planning Division ( Preobala Biswas, Executive Director of Self-Help Association for Rural People through Education and Entrepreneurship)
Cleaning workers from Bangladesh’s Dalit communities face discrimination in the workplace (Gayanath Sarak Phd and Preobala Biswas)
Action Research on Hindu Personal Law Codification with Gender Equality and Equity
The following are some of the things we’ve done with Work with the Bangladesh National Human Rights Commission includes:
Members of the Dalit, Hijra, and Other Excluded Minorities Thematic Committee
The Universal Periodic Review Committee’s (UPR) contributor is the Thematic Committee on Religious and Ethnic Minorities and Non-Citizens.
She worked for a variety of organizations in various capacities.
Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council
Bangladesh Puja Udjapon Parishad
Bangladesh Women Unity Council
Dhaka University Alumina Association
Human Rights commission for Bangladesh Minorities (HRCBM)
She was editor of
Dalit Kantha a Bengali newspaper
Bangladesh Journal of Minorities
Saha is the pioneer of Bangladesh’s rights-based work for the 8 million Dalits in Bangladesh. Hundreds of roundtable talks, advocacy meetings, protest marches, fact-finding expeditions, news conferences, and memorandums to various government agencies were organized by her. On July 17, 2019, Saha presented the topic of Bangladesh’s Missing Minorities to US President Donald Trump. “Who took the house and the land?” President Trump wondered. “The Muslim fundamentalist group,” I said. They also receive political protection on a regular basis.
Priya Saha to be sued for sedition: Quader
Priya Saha: A Courageous Bangladeshi Hindu Woman of Valor a Usa based think tank
She became the voice of 18 million religious minorities in Bangladesh, as well as the country’s indigenous people.
She is currently working with the Human Rights Congress of Bangladesh to have the “Bangladesh Genocide 1971” recognized by the US Congress. To attain this recognition, she is working with a journalist, politician, congressman, or senator, academician, as well as numerous human rights organizations and United Nations entities.
