Roquia Hussain
Begum Roquia Sakhawat Hussain, popularly known as Begum Rokeya, was born in 1880 in the village of Pairabondh, Mithapukur, Rangpur, in what was then the British Indian Empire and is now Bangladesh.
Begum Rokeya was an inspiring figure who contributed much to the struggle to liberate women from the bondage of social malaises. Her life can be seen in the context of other social reformers within what was then India. To raise popular consciousness, especially among women, she wrote a number of articles, stories and novels, mostly in Bengali.
Rokeya used humor, irony, and satire to focus attention on the injustices faced by Bengali-speaking Muslim women. She criticized oppressive social customs forced upon women that were based upon a corrupted version of Islam, asserting that women fulfilling their potential as human beings could best display the glory of Lord. She wrote courageously against restrictions on women in order to promote their emancipation, which, she believed, would come about by breaking the gender division of labor. She rejected discrimination for women in the public arena and believed that discrimination would cease only when women were able to undertake whatever profession they chose. In 1926, Begum strongly condemned men for withholding education from women in name of religion as she addressed the Bengal women's education conference:
"The opponents of the female education say that women will be unruly...fie !they call themselves Muslims and yet go against the basic tenet of islam which gives equal right to education. If men are not led astray once educated, why should women?"
Sultana's Dream by Roquia
In 1905, Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, who was then most likely between 25 and 28 years old (her exact birthdate is unknown), published the proto-science fiction story Sultana’s Dream in The Indian Ladies’ Magazine, a Madras-based English-language periodical edited by and for women. While most of the contributors to this and similar journals published in British India were Hindu, Hossain was Muslim. Even more unusual was her story’s championship of women’s liberation.
Like the story’s author, the narrator of Sultana’s Dream practices purdah, whereby women are sequestered in a home’s “zenana” area. Whisked away to a future city-state known as Ladyland, Sultana is at first hesitant to venture into the street. Isn’t it unsafe for women out there? Her host, however, reassures her that she has nothing to fear… because, 30 years earlier, during a war that killed off most of the nation’s menfolk, the surviving males were ordered to isolate themselves indoors, where they’ve remained ever since.
Although the author reassures readers that all this is just a dream, one gets the distinct impression that Sultana’s host – a female scientist – has transported her into the future with the goal of subverting the course of history. This was groundbreaking stuff. Remarkably, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s novel Herland, one of the most influential feminist utopias of the early 20th century – an era I’ve described as science fiction’s “Radium Age” – wouldn’t appear for another 10 years.
But Sultana’s Dream is just one part of Hossain’s rich legacy. Known after her death by the honorific Begum Rokeya (“begum” denotes a Muslim woman of high rank), Hossain was born to a well-educated Muslim family in the Bengal Presidency, a subdivision of the British Empire in India now divided into Bangladesh and West Bengal. After the death of her husband in 1909, she would establish India’s first school for Muslim girls – going door to door in an effort to recruit students from reluctant families. In 1911, she’d reestablish the school in Calcutta (now Kolkata). The Sakhawat Memorial Girls’ High School, now run by the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education, is still operating today.
All women, whether Hindu, Muslim or Christian, whether south Asian or European, are victims of oppression, we come to understand as we follow the diverse characters’ various storylines. The best possible remedy to this sorry state of affairs? A nonsectarian, inclusive and self-supporting “arcology” – to use a term popularized more recently by sf authors – directed and staffed by women.
1. Concept of Andarmehel - the universe of women
2. Observation of females and their connection with book.
Compare both narratives.
