Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain,commonly known as Begum Rokeya, was a Bengali writer, thinker, educationist, social activist and an advocate of women’s rights. She is considered the pioneer feminist of Bengal. She wrote novels, poems, short stories, science fiction, satires, treatises and essays. In her writings, she advocated that both men and women should be treated equally as rational beings, and the lack of education is the main reason for women’s lagging behind. Rokeya suggested that education for women is the foremost requisite of women’s emancipation; hence she established the first school intended primarily for the Bengali Muslim girls in Kolkata. Rokeya is said to have gone from house to house persuading the parents to send their girls to her school. Until her death, she ran the school despite facing hostile criticism and various social obstacles.
In 1916, she founded the Muslim Women’s Association, an organization that fought for women’s education and employment. In 1926, Rokeya presided over the Bengal Women’s Education Conference convened in Kolkata, the first significant attempt to bring women together in support of women’s education rights. She was engaged in debates and conferences regarding the advancement of women until her death on 9 December 1932, shortly after presiding over a session during the Indian Women’s Conference.
She wanted to study Bengali, the language of the majority in Bengal. The family disliked this because much upper-class Muslims of the time preferred to use Arabic and Persian as the medium of education, instead of their native language Bengali.
Her Urdu-speaking husband, Khan Bahadur Sakhawat Hussain, was gentle, liberal-minded and had much interest in female education. He encouraged her to write, and on his advice, she adopted Bengali as the principal language for her literary works since it was the language of the masses. She launched her literary career in 1902 with a Bengali essay entitled Pipasa (Thirst). She also published Motichur (1905) and Sultana’s Dream (1908) during her husband’s lifetime.
Rokeya established a high school in her beloved husband’s memory, naming it Sakhawat Memorial Girls' High School. It started in Bhagalpur, a traditionally Urdu-speaking area, with only five students. A dispute with her husband's family over property forced her to move the school in 1911 to Calcutta, a Bengali-speaking area. It remains one of the city's most popular schools for girls and is now run by the state government of West Bengal.
Rokeya also founded the Anjuman e Khawateen e Islam (Islamic Women's Association), which was active in holding debates and conferences regarding the status of women and education. She advocated reformation, particularly for women, and believed that parochialism and excessive conservatism were principally responsible for the relatively slow development of Muslims in British India. As such, she is one of the first Muslim feminists. She was inspired by the traditional Islamic learning as enunciated in the Quran, and believed that modern Islam had been distorted or corrupted; Anjuman e Khawateen e Islam organised many events for social reforms based on the original teachings of Islam that, according to her, were lost.
We are about to celebrate ‘International Women’s Day’ on March 8, with a vision to ensure a more equal world regardless of gender, to ensure justice, dignity, hope for daughters everywhere. In this very moment, we remember our very own and beloved daughter who celebrated the path of freedom for the Muslim women in Bengal. She can be described as the embodiment of the soul and conscience of her age.
The role of Begum Rokeya in the life of Muslim women of Bengal is so immense that Shamsun Nahar Mahmud (1908-64), biographer and associate of Rokeya, described her as a ‘spider mother’ and famously proclaimed that: “The fate of the Bengali Muslim women has changed radically within the space of half a century, and there is no way to deny that this benevolent woman played the most significant role behind it.”
Rokeya was brought up in the meticulous form of conservatism practiced by the elite Muslims of the time. Consequently, she became the fiercest critic of the system. Her understanding and insight, regarding Islam and mere societal dogma, give us a mediation to think about the ostensible opposing stand of Islam and education for girls. Instead of blindly blaming Islam for the ignorance and unholy conservatism of that time, Rokeya quoted from the history to argue in favour of the importance of the education of Muslim girls.
Although Islam has successfully prevented the physical killing of baby girls, yet Muslims have been glibly and frantically wrecking the mind, intellect and judgment of their daughters till the present day. Many consider it a mark of honour to keep their daughters ignorant and deprive them of knowledge and understanding of the world by coping them up within the four walls of the house.
In 1926, in her address to the Bengal women’s education conference, Rokeya strongly condemned men for withholding education from women in name of religion. Her poignant assertion gives a glimpse of the deepness of her thought and idea and pervasiveness of her understanding. Her comment reminds us the very inadequacy of thought and practice of that time Bengali Muslims and also her ability to accept that religion is not an opposition to women rights but social dogmas in the name of religion.
The most beautiful part of Rokeya’s story is not her rhetoric and intellectual poignant but her action. She was not only an intellectual force of the feminist movement but also an activist- a combination we seldom see. Brought up in a conservative family environment, and without any formal education, Rokeya’s life was meant for another ordinary Muslim housewife. But breaking all shackles, she grew up to become a writer in both Bengali and English, an activist for the freedom of Muslim women in Bengal and an educationist. In March 1911, she set up a school named Sakhawat Memorial School for Girls to educate Muslim girls. Rokeya, who had never stepped into a school in childhood, became an architect of Bengal Renaissance through female education and modernization of Bengali Muslim women.
Begum Rokeya ran the school for twenty-four years, enduring harsh criticism and various social obstacles, and made it the best seat of learning for Muslim girls. At first, only non-Bengali girls used to go to Sakhawat Memorial School. But Begum Rokeya worked hard to convince Bengali Muslim families to send their daughters to school. She went from door to door, persuading the parents that education is a necessity for girls and promising that purdah would be observed at her school.
Her tireless efforts paid off, with middle-class Muslim girls breaking the taboo against stepping out of the house to study. She also arranged horse-carriages so that girls could go to school and return home observing purdah.
Sakhawat Memorial Girls’ School gave lessons in recitation from the Quran, along with explanations, Bangla, English, Urdu, Persian, home nursing, first aid, cooking, sewing, physical exercise, music, etc. Begum Rokeya used to visit other girls’ schools to see for herself the teaching methods employed there and how the schools were being run. As there lacked the competent female teachers at that time in Calcutta, Rokeya herself used to train the teachers she appointed from Madras, Gaya, Agra and other places. It was at her repeated requests that the government set up the Muslim Women Training School in Calcutta in 1919. She worked to ensure government funding and social patronage for the institute, withstanding extensive criticism.
Begum Rokeya left behind many letters in Bangla and English. She had a respect for the Bangla language. Although Urdu was spoken by the aristocratic Muslims of the time including her own home she understood that Bangla, spoken by the majority of the Muslims of Bengal, should be her medium of expression. She mastered Bangla and strongly advocated its use at the Bangiya Nari Shikkha Sammelan (Convention on Women Literacy in Bengal) in 1927.
The union was at the forefront of the fight for women's education, employment and their legal and political rights. Society defrayed the cost of education for a large number of girls and arranged marriages for many underprivileged girls. It gave shelter to orphans and the destitute and extended financial help to widows. It also established some businesses for women to earn economic independence. It contributed greatly towards the development of Muslim women in Calcutta. Confronting bitter annotations and accusations from conservatives, Rokeya inspired women to join the union.
She criticized ruthless customs based upon a corrupted version of Islam and accentuated that women fulfilling their potential as human beings could best display the glory of Allah. Rokeya realized that economic independence was crucial if women were to achieve complete emancipation and no longer be dependent upon fathers, brothers and husbands for their livelihoods. To that end, she encouraged the revival of craft industries, which women could successfully carry out at their home.
Unlike the Hindu women’s reform movements, which depended heavily upon legislative changes, Muslim women’s reform was carried out on a more social level around issues of education, purdah, heath care and appropriating a literate modern Muslim identity. Besides, issues related to marriage, divorce, polygamy and inheritance also figured as prominent issues, and the application of Sharia law was offered as a revolutionary solution to the deprived status of Muslim women in 1937.
The social reform of Muslim women can be best viewed from three different angles, a) ulama-led attempts to purify Muslim women and their religious practices through educating them about the true Islamic teachings, b) Modern educationist- and reformer-led movements for women's education, c) literary solutions offered to uplift the moral psyche and provide guidance for the modern Muslim woman's subjectivity. The underlying theme of all three strands of reform was the overall effort to come in terms with a modern Muslim identity via manipulating, re-conceptualizing and appropriating the modern Muslim women.
The ulama idealized women’s purity, religiosity, morality and loyalty to Allah and the family of utmost importance. Women’s unconditional submission for the cause of the family was glorified. Women’s religious obligations were considered to be of more significance than that of men since the zenana was considered to be ‘corrupted’ by non-Islamic rituals, which was recognized as a great threat to the Muslim identity since women were the primary caregivers of children and managers of the household. It was believed that if women were given proper Islamic education then it would be possible to restore the true Islamic teaching to the entire community.
Thus, within this discourse women became the vehicle through which the desired code of Islamic sanctions was to be disseminated. This domain of reform is perhaps best manifested in Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanavi’s exemplary work Bihishti Zawar. Since its publication at the beginning of the 20th century, this book has become a guide for respectable Muslim women, it has been translated into many languages and is widely circulated and read even today. One may ponder about the lasting popularity of this text. The primary reason this text became so important and durable over centuries is because of the basic egalitarian premise it sets itself off from. The text claims no innate difference between men and women and considers women to be equally capable of acquiring knowledge and spiritual height.
Till her last days, she was occupied with her writings, activism and social work. Her headship, predominantly in the context of the early 20th century, amplified the impact of women’s life in unpartitioned India. Her words and messages are still very relevant to our current time and society. Her foresight, tolerance and progressiveness can still guide women who want to pursue their dreams against all sorts of prejudices and religious bigotry. No wonder she is still a towering figure in the women's movement and a guiding star for thousands of women leaders in home and abroad.
The writer is a lecturer in the Department of English and Modern Languages at IUBAT-International University of Business Agriculture and Technology.
