Literature Desk :
Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain was born in 1880 in the village of Pairaband in the colonial British province of Bengal Presidency, which later became the northern part of Bangladesh. Born into an upper-class landowning Muslim family, Rokeya was not allowed to attend school, or even to learn Bengali or English, to prevent ‘contamination’ from non-Muslim ideas. While her father was fairly forward looking in educating his two sons, he was not particularly interested in educating his three daughters. She was taught to read Arabic and Urdu, in order to be able to read the Quran and books on ‘proper’ conduct for women.
According to one of her biographers, she so valued her identity as a Bengali that she defied custom and persisted in learning Bengali under the supervision of one of her brothers. To this brother, Rokeya Hosain remained grateful all her life. She wrote in dedicating her novel Padmaraga to him, “You have moulded me from childhood … your love is sweeter than honey which after all has a bitter after-taste; [your love] is pure and divine like Kausar” [the stream of nectar flowing in heaven mentioned in the holy Quran]. He taught Rokeya and her sister (who also became a writer) English and BangIa secretly at night.
In 1896, when Rokeya was sixteen years old, she married Khan Bahadur Sakhawat Hossain, the Deputy Magistrate of Bhagalpur. Her husband wanted from her not the traditional duty and obedience, but love and sympathy. He was proud of her quick intelligence and encouraged her to befriend educated Hindu and Christian women and to learn English. Many of her friends also encouraged Rokeya Hosain in pursuing her philanthropic and reformist activities. Sakhawat Hosain died in 1909, and left to his wife a considerable portion of his savings to be spent on women’s education. Rokeya Hosain carried out her husband’s wish by establishing a girl’s school (Shakawat Memorial School) in Bhagalpur and then moved it to Calcutta, where it continued to flourish.
At a very early age, Rokeya made up her mind to fight against the unthinking observance of customs, especially those that struck her to be absurd or unjust. Rokeya wrote courageously against restrictions on women and to promote their emancipation, which she believed would come by breaking the gender division of labour. When women were able to undertake whatever profession they chose, she argued, then segregation and discrimination would cease.
Despite her outspokenness on issues such as purdah, her actions as a reformer were invariably tactful and strategic and she was loyal to holy doctrine. All her life she herself used the burqa (the full covering of the body) when she appeared in public. In her school and among friends and relatives, she covered her head with the end of her sari. She pointed out that some form of veiling or protecting oneself from public exposure was common to all civilised societies of her time. She proposed a form of purdah that covered the body well without confining it. She supported a ‘necessary and moderate’ purdah which would not be an obstacle to women achieving their potential. Initially, her requests for help in furthering women’s education were ignored by the rich and influential Muslims of Calcutta. So, in 1916 she founded the Anjuman-e-Khawatin-e-Islam (Muslim Women’s Association), and slowly began to win support for helping disadvantaged women.
She saw her writing as a means of challenging people to reconsider some of the basic principles of their society and thereby effect social reform. Her’s was the project of consciousness raising, and so she wrote mostly in Bangla. She strategised to adopt a style that would best carry out her purposes. She had a keen eye for the vulnerable points of her opponents, and used humour, irony, satire, and pathos to make her case. While her writings focused on the lives of Bengali Muslim women, she was deeply concerned with larger issues affecting the Bengali Muslim community as a whole.
Rokeya wrote Sultana’s Dream in 1905 to test her proficiency in English. Her husband; who read the manuscript through without sitting down, was impressed. “A terrible revenge,” he commented. He persuaded her to send it to the Madras-based, English language periodical the Indian Ladies Magazine, where it was published and well-received. In 1908, it appeared as a book.
Her concern with reforming and revitalising the Bengali Muslim communality was shared by other Muslim authors of the time who saw powerful rivals in both the Christian English and the Indian Hindus. These writers felt that if Muslims in Bengal were to survive as a distinct group and change their status as a weak minority, they had to accept certain aspects of modernity such as scientific thinking and education without damaging the fabric of Islam. The debates these writers fostered were silent on the question of women’s position until Rokeya raised it. She challenged traditionalist beliefs about the innate superiority of men on religious grounds. Similarly, she argued for the education of women as “the development of God-given faculties by regular exercise of these faculties.” She argued that education led to self-realisation and the fullest development of women’s potential as human beings, and thereby displayed God’s glory. This argument did not prevent her from also encouraging women to educate themselves not only in the arts but also in the sciences, so that they could work and become economically independent.
Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain, (1880 – December 9, 1932) was a prolific writer and a social worker in undivided Bengal in the early 20th century. She is most famous for her efforts on behalf of gender equality and other social issues. She established the first school aimed primarily at Muslim girls, which exists today.
She was born Roquia Khatun, but achieved prominence as Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain. Begum is an honorific, that is, a title of respect in addressing a woman. When she wrote in English, she transliterated her name as Rokeya.
Her father, Jahiruddin Muhammad Abu Ali Haidar Saber, was a highly educated zamindar (landlord). Rokeya had two sisters, Karimunnesa Khatun and Humayra Khatun; and three brothers, one of whom died in childhood.
Rokeya’s eldest brother Ibrahim, and her immediate elder sister Karimunnesa, both had great influence on her life. Karimunnesa wanted to study Bangla, the language of the majority in Bengal. The family disliked this because many upper class Muslims of the time preferred to use Arabic and Persian as the media of education, instead of their native language, Bangla. Ibrahim taught English and Bangla to Rokeya and Karimunnesa; both sisters became authors.
Karimunnesa married at the age of fourteen, later earning a reputation as a poet. Both of her sons, Nawab Abdul Karim Gaznawi and Nawab Abdul Halim Gaznawi, became famous in the political arena and occupied ministerial portfolios under British authorities. n To be continued…
Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain was born in 1880 in the village of Pairaband in the colonial British province of Bengal Presidency, which later became the northern part of Bangladesh. Born into an upper-class landowning Muslim family, Rokeya was not allowed to attend school, or even to learn Bengali or English, to prevent ‘contamination’ from non-Muslim ideas. While her father was fairly forward looking in educating his two sons, he was not particularly interested in educating his three daughters. She was taught to read Arabic and Urdu, in order to be able to read the Quran and books on ‘proper’ conduct for women.
According to one of her biographers, she so valued her identity as a Bengali that she defied custom and persisted in learning Bengali under the supervision of one of her brothers. To this brother, Rokeya Hosain remained grateful all her life. She wrote in dedicating her novel Padmaraga to him, “You have moulded me from childhood … your love is sweeter than honey which after all has a bitter after-taste; [your love] is pure and divine like Kausar” [the stream of nectar flowing in heaven mentioned in the holy Quran]. He taught Rokeya and her sister (who also became a writer) English and BangIa secretly at night.
In 1896, when Rokeya was sixteen years old, she married Khan Bahadur Sakhawat Hossain, the Deputy Magistrate of Bhagalpur. Her husband wanted from her not the traditional duty and obedience, but love and sympathy. He was proud of her quick intelligence and encouraged her to befriend educated Hindu and Christian women and to learn English. Many of her friends also encouraged Rokeya Hosain in pursuing her philanthropic and reformist activities. Sakhawat Hosain died in 1909, and left to his wife a considerable portion of his savings to be spent on women’s education. Rokeya Hosain carried out her husband’s wish by establishing a girl’s school (Shakawat Memorial School) in Bhagalpur and then moved it to Calcutta, where it continued to flourish.
At a very early age, Rokeya made up her mind to fight against the unthinking observance of customs, especially those that struck her to be absurd or unjust. Rokeya wrote courageously against restrictions on women and to promote their emancipation, which she believed would come by breaking the gender division of labour. When women were able to undertake whatever profession they chose, she argued, then segregation and discrimination would cease.
Despite her outspokenness on issues such as purdah, her actions as a reformer were invariably tactful and strategic and she was loyal to holy doctrine. All her life she herself used the burqa (the full covering of the body) when she appeared in public. In her school and among friends and relatives, she covered her head with the end of her sari. She pointed out that some form of veiling or protecting oneself from public exposure was common to all civilised societies of her time. She proposed a form of purdah that covered the body well without confining it. She supported a ‘necessary and moderate’ purdah which would not be an obstacle to women achieving their potential. Initially, her requests for help in furthering women’s education were ignored by the rich and influential Muslims of Calcutta. So, in 1916 she founded the Anjuman-e-Khawatin-e-Islam (Muslim Women’s Association), and slowly began to win support for helping disadvantaged women.
She saw her writing as a means of challenging people to reconsider some of the basic principles of their society and thereby effect social reform. Her’s was the project of consciousness raising, and so she wrote mostly in Bangla. She strategised to adopt a style that would best carry out her purposes. She had a keen eye for the vulnerable points of her opponents, and used humour, irony, satire, and pathos to make her case. While her writings focused on the lives of Bengali Muslim women, she was deeply concerned with larger issues affecting the Bengali Muslim community as a whole.
Rokeya wrote Sultana’s Dream in 1905 to test her proficiency in English. Her husband; who read the manuscript through without sitting down, was impressed. “A terrible revenge,” he commented. He persuaded her to send it to the Madras-based, English language periodical the Indian Ladies Magazine, where it was published and well-received. In 1908, it appeared as a book.
Her concern with reforming and revitalising the Bengali Muslim communality was shared by other Muslim authors of the time who saw powerful rivals in both the Christian English and the Indian Hindus. These writers felt that if Muslims in Bengal were to survive as a distinct group and change their status as a weak minority, they had to accept certain aspects of modernity such as scientific thinking and education without damaging the fabric of Islam. The debates these writers fostered were silent on the question of women’s position until Rokeya raised it. She challenged traditionalist beliefs about the innate superiority of men on religious grounds. Similarly, she argued for the education of women as “the development of God-given faculties by regular exercise of these faculties.” She argued that education led to self-realisation and the fullest development of women’s potential as human beings, and thereby displayed God’s glory. This argument did not prevent her from also encouraging women to educate themselves not only in the arts but also in the sciences, so that they could work and become economically independent.
Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain, (1880 – December 9, 1932) was a prolific writer and a social worker in undivided Bengal in the early 20th century. She is most famous for her efforts on behalf of gender equality and other social issues. She established the first school aimed primarily at Muslim girls, which exists today.
She was born Roquia Khatun, but achieved prominence as Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain. Begum is an honorific, that is, a title of respect in addressing a woman. When she wrote in English, she transliterated her name as Rokeya.
Her father, Jahiruddin Muhammad Abu Ali Haidar Saber, was a highly educated zamindar (landlord). Rokeya had two sisters, Karimunnesa Khatun and Humayra Khatun; and three brothers, one of whom died in childhood.
Rokeya’s eldest brother Ibrahim, and her immediate elder sister Karimunnesa, both had great influence on her life. Karimunnesa wanted to study Bangla, the language of the majority in Bengal. The family disliked this because many upper class Muslims of the time preferred to use Arabic and Persian as the media of education, instead of their native language, Bangla. Ibrahim taught English and Bangla to Rokeya and Karimunnesa; both sisters became authors.
Karimunnesa married at the age of fourteen, later earning a reputation as a poet. Both of her sons, Nawab Abdul Karim Gaznawi and Nawab Abdul Halim Gaznawi, became famous in the political arena and occupied ministerial portfolios under British authorities. n To be continued…
