Sultana's Dream Read online

  The opposition from influential men made Rokeya aware of the need to organize women. She realized that only through organized effort would she be able to build public opinion in favor of women’s education, and that solidarity, not isolated effort, was needed. In 1916 she founded the Anjuman-e-Khawatin-e-Islam (Muslim Women’s Association). She visited women in their homes to try to interest them in becoming members, but had to tolerate considerable sarcasm and criticism. However, her firm resolve and dedication again triumphed.

  The activities she undertook as the guiding spirit of the Anjuman brought her into direct contact with women of poorer classes. Her writing and her school were mainly involved with the upper and middle classes. She has been criticized in recent years for this early bias. But the Anjuman’s activities related directly to disadvantaged poor women. It offered financial assistance to poor widows, rescued and sheltered battered wives, helped poor families to marry their daughters, and above all helped poor women to achieve literacy. Rokeya was keenly aware of the elitist nature of formal education in the Bengal of her time. It was clear to her that poor women were impeded by their poverty from acquiring an education. To counter this state of affairs, her association, under her guidance, devised a literacy program for the slum women, both Hindu and Muslim, of Calcutta. To cover the different slum areas in Calcutta, the members formed work teams, visiting the houses of women in the slums to teach them the rudiments of reading, writing, personal hygiene, and child care. Their instruction was given, depending on the linguistic character of the area, in both Bangla and Urdu. Many graduates of the Sakhawat school who volunteered for the project still remember fondly Rokeya’s courage, spirit, energy, and inspiring presence.19

  Until her death in 1932, Rokeya struggled to liberate and educate Bengali Muslim women through her writings, through her school, and through the Anjuman. A review of her literary work and the social context in which she wrote will help us understand what she was struggling to achieve.

  Rokeya’s literary activities extended over three decades, from 1903 to 1932. Her works, especially her essays, were mainly on a few interrelated topics: 1) women’s, especially Bengali Muslim women’s, situation; 2) Bengali Muslims and their problems; and 3) Bengali society and its problems. Women were the focal point of Rokeya’s thoughts: raising women’s consciousness and ensuring women’s equal rights and status in society. At the same time she was also deeply concerned about the situation of the Bengali Muslim society of which those women formed an integral part. Similarly she was constantly aware of the greater society—the Bengalis—of which the Bengali Muslims formed a part. Though she was never alienated from her own community, however irritating and unsatisfactory she might have found it, she had a broader vision than some of her Hindu and Muslim contemporaries. Such liberalism is rare in Bengali literature. Indeed, her awareness and concern extended beyond Bengal to include the situation of Indian women more generally and even that of women in other countries. Such a comprehensive world-view is also rare among Bengali authors.

  The concern about her own society was a characteristic that she shared with other Muslim authors of the time. The last three decades of the nineteenth century were a time of great stress and change for Indian Muslims. This was partly brought on by the realization that they confronted two powerful rival groups during this period. The Christian English,20 bearers of an alien culture, held all political power and offered new social and cultural alternatives. The Hindus, quick to respond to the transfer of power from the Muslim Mughals to the British and to learn English, were filling all available government posts, acquiring political and administrative power, and securing the patronage of the colonial rulers. After a prolonged debate between the modernists and the traditionalists which by the 1870s was resolved in favor of the modernists, the Hindus were also in a position to offer new solutions to many social problems common to all Bengalis.21

  The Muslims, searching for a modus vivendi, also found themselves torn between the traditionalist and modernist approaches. The need for survival as a distinct group and the recognition of their status as a weak minority often drove the Muslims into a defensive stance which sometimes became ultraconservative. But the leadership of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan of Aligarh, described as “the Muslim counterpart of [the Hindu reformer] Ram Mohan Roy, anxious to accept Western Science but without damaging the fabric of Islam,”22 soon convinced Bengali Muslim leaders such as Nawab Abdul Lateef (1828–1893) and other members of the Mohammadan Literary Society of Calcutta that Bengali Muslim males should acquire modern formal education in order to compete with the Hindus. Their active lobbying compelled the Bengal government to take steps to facilitate the formal education of Muslim males. In 1871, only 14.7 percent of the total Muslim male school-age population attended school; by 1881, the proportion had risen dramatically to 23.8 percent.23

  The quest for a group identity united Bengali Muslim writers at the turn of the century. This central concern led them to seek their roots in history and tradition, on the one hand, and, on the other, critically to review their present situation. It is interesting to note that until Rokeya raised it, the debaters were virtually silent on one vital social issue: the position of Bengali Muslim women. This silence is the most significant difference between the Bengali Hindu and Muslim quests for identity in the nineteenth century. The most lively and passionate debates between the Hindu traditionalists and modernists raged around issues related to family life and women’s position: child marriage, polygamy, widow remarriage, purdah, and women’s education.24 Through the movements launched by the modernists, the Widow Remarriage Act (permitting widows to remarry) was passed in 1856; polygamy began to go out of fashion; the Age of Consent Act, which fixed the minimum legal age of marriage for girls at twelve years, was passed in 1891; in 1866 Brahmo women were allowed to come out of purdah and participate in the weekly congregation; the number of girls’ schools rose from 95 in 1863 to 2,238 in 1891, and the number of female students (almost all of them Hindu, Brahmo, and Christian) rose from 2,486 in 1863 to 78,865 in 1891. Indeed, the increasing demand by the younger generation of Hindu and Brahmo men for educated brides compelled even fairly conservative upper- and middle-class Hindu and Brahmo families to send their daughters to school. By 1905 the number of women who had received B.A. and M.A. degrees from Calcutta University totaled thirty. All of them were either Hindu, Brahmo, or Christian; none were Muslim.25 Why were the Muslims, so eager to catch up with the Hindus and if possible to outstrip them where the education of boys was concerned, so reluctant to emulate them regarding the education of girls? The answer lies perhaps in their attitude toward the need for observance of purdah.

  For Muslims, the relaxation of purdah rules—which were enjoined by the Quran and sanctioned by hadith (religious traditions based on the sayings of the Prophet)—was a very grave issue. The original instructions, proclaimed in Surah 24 of the Quran, concerned modesty of behavior. A woman was to lower her gaze, to avoid displaying her beauty except to men in permitted categories (husband, father-in-law, brother, sons, stepsons, uncles, children, slaves), to draw a veil or shawl over her head and bosom and avoid attracting attention (for example, by not wearing conspicuous jewelry). Later interpretations and elaborations were directed more toward restricting women’s mobility and sexual self-determination.

  Fatima Mernissi argues persuasively that the extreme form of seclusion was actually a protective measure, introduced to protect men from women’s great powers of seduction which, if unchecked, might succeed in tempting Muslim men to the point of swerving from their allegiance to Allah, their sole Lord and Master. Such breach of loyalty would bring about the much-dreaded fitna (chaos) in the umma (community of believers)—which is presumably composed of men only, for Islam is a man’s religion par excellence. This fear, coupled perhaps with anxiety about paternity, led Muslim men to tighten the restrictions on women’s mobility and self-determination.26 In Rokeya’s time, the customs of Muslim purdah permitted few occasions for interacti
on between men and women. Even in the family, where the two worlds overlapped, strictly followed rules of avoidance precluded transgressions of male and female space.

  Moreover, strict observance of purdah rules among the Bengali Muslims, especially among the elite, became important for a socioeconomic reason. Observance of strict purdah not only provided women with separate living quarters at home, but guaranteed their invisibility in public spaces through covered transport and the burqa. These measures involved considerable expense which only the affluent could afford. Purdah observance quickly became a status symbol. Thus the same motive, status, that had encouraged upper-class Muslim families in Rokeya’s time to send their sons to progressive schools stood in the way of their daughters’ modernization.

  The resultant cultural and intellectual gap, forever widening, between the men and women of the Muslim upper middle class did not seem to concern Muslim men. Nor did the improvement in the status and situation of Hindu and Brahmo women resulting from their access to education seem to perturb Muslim men greatly. But Rokeya realized the adverse effects of the cultural deprivation on the already inferior status of Muslim women. She led a campaign to persuade her society to change its attitude toward women.

  The five articles that Rokeya published in 1903–4—“Strijatir Abanati” (“The Degradation of Women”), “Ardhangi” (“The Female Half”), “Sugrihini” (“The Good Housewife”), “Borka” (“The Cloak”), and “Griha” (“Home”)—might be considered her preliminary statement of the problem of purdah. The bulk of her later work elaborated and substantiated the thesis presented in these articles, which were collected and published in the book Motichur (1908). The essays illustrate her beliefs and her strategy as an advocate of the women’s cause. Rokeya argued as follows:

  1. Though at present economically dependent on men for historical reasons, women are not innately inferior to them mentally or spiritually. Given equal opportunity, they can easily prove themselves men’s equal in mental and spiritual endowments.

  2. By confining women to the household, men deliberately deprive women of equal opportunity to cultivate their minds and to engage in gainful employment, thus making them dependent and inferior in status.

  3. Men perpetuate their domination of women through several mechanisms of social control, chief among which are seclusion and socialization.

  4. They further deprive women from exercising their lawful rights by manipulating laws that are man-made and by taking advantage of women’s ignorance and vulnerability.

  5. The unjust and immoral practice of deliberately depriving half the society of the opportunity of healthy and natural growth is detrimental to the society as a whole.

  6. This deprivation and close confinement also make women deficient in reasoning, ignorant, and physically weak, thus rendering them unfit for properly executing their socially ascribed roles as housewives and mothers.

  7. The only effective and morally right solution to this deplorable state of affairs is to give women access to education, emancipation from purdah being a precondition.

  8. Finally, the benefits accrued by society (including men) would be immense, for educated women would be responsible in and useful to the society.

  Certain characteristics distinguish Rokeya as an advocate for women. First, she was a Muslim and a woman. The other initiators of debate about women, such as Raja Ram Mohan Roy, a Brahmo, and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, a Hindu, were male. Rokeya’s tone was more passionate and angry than theirs.27 Second, men like Roy and Vidyasagar were quickly and ably supported by other social reformers and notable figures like the Tagores.28 Indeed, women of the Tagore family soon joined the debate and set an example for other women.29 Rokeya had to struggle a long time before gaining support from influential people of her society. The last and most important difference between Rokeya and other advocates for women is that, of all these reformers, Rokeya alone challenged the accepted notions of male superiority.

  Rokeya was aware that in order to establish her case, she would have to refute the counterarguments of the traditionalists and to make women themselves aware of the need for change. Angry though she often was, Rokeya rarely let herself get carried away by her emotions. Her rational bent of mind and uncommon measure of common sense showed her that women themselves must bear some responsibility for consenting to be victimized and oppressed in silence.

  Rokeya knew that the fundamentalists rested their case for innate male superiority on the belief in divine ordination, the evidence for which was to be found in religious texts; for example, in the story of creation in the Semitic (Judeo-Christian-Islamic) religious texts and in the strictures of Manu for male guardianship of women in Hindu texts. The strictures of Manu state that a woman is not fit to take care of herself; in childhood her father, in youth her husband, and in old age her son are her legal guardians.

  On the improbability of divine ordination Rokeya wrote, referring to the Islamic legal stand of recognizing two women as equivalent to one man: “Had God Himself intended women to be inferior, He would have ordained it so that mothers would have given birth to daughters at the end of the fifth month of pregnancy. The supply of mother’s milk would naturally have been half of that in case of a son. But that is not the case. How can it be? Is not God just and most merciful?”30 She concluded that “men are using religion as an excuse to dominate us at present…. Therefore we should not submit quietly to such oppression in the name of religion.”31 This required great courage on Rokeya’s part, for she was questioning a legal position based on the text of the Quran itself. While Muslim scholars and jurists do not hesitate to debate the hadith—the body of traditions based on sayings or actions of the Prophet and his companions—few Muslims dare to challenge the revealed text of the Quran which they are expected to accept unconditionally.

  The traditionalist reluctance to educate women was voiced thus: Men have to go to school, learn English, and get a degree because they have to get jobs in order to support their families; a woman who is going to stay home, look after the household, and be economically dependent on a man would find education irrelevant. Rokeya had very different ideas of what the nature and purpose of education were. According to her, education was “the development of the God-given faculties by regular exercise of these faculties. Merely passing an examination and getting a degree does not constitute real education, in our opinion.”32 The point of education is not to get a job. The ultimate purpose of education for human beings, regardless of sex, is self-realization, the fullest development of their potential as human beings. That is why women have as much right as men to education.

  What would this education do for women? According to Rokeya, a proper education would teach them “to acquire knowledge in the different branches of science and arts…. They would learn to love their country…. It would include physical education so that they are not frail. Special emphasis would be laid on that training which would enable them to be financially independent of men.”33 She repeatedly emphasized the need to teach women chemistry, botany, horticulture, personal hygiene, health care, nutrition, physical education, gymnastics, and painting and other fine arts. Of all the Bengali reformers, she seems to have been the only one who clearly understood that economic independence is the first prerequisite of women’s liberation. She wrote: “Some say that women tolerate oppression from men because they depend on men’s earning. They are right.”34 She proposed that women start working: “If our liberation from male domination depends on our ability to earn independently, then we should begin. We should be lawyers, magistrates, judges, clerks…. The sort of labour we put in our households can bring us wages if we use it outside.”35 And she extended her attention beyond the range of these obviously middle-class jobs, writing that “in addition to these jobs, we should consider the opportunities offered by agriculture.”36

  Rokeya knew that to be liberated, a woman must come out of seclusion, but she also knew that coming out of seclusion did not mean that liberation would necess
arily follow. She saw that a woman might move about unveiled without being liberated, and that a woman would be truly liberated only when she was capable of thinking and making decisions independently. Rokeya gave an example:

  Recently we see the Parsi* women moving about unveiled, but are they truly free from mental slavery? Certainly not! Their unveiling is not a result of their own decision. The Parsi men have dragged their women out of purdah in a blind imitation of the Europeans. It does not show any initiative of their women. They are as lifeless as they were before. When their men kept them in seclusion they stayed there. When the men dragged them out by their “nose-rings” they came out. That cannot be called an achievement by women.37

  To Rokeya this mental slavery was the most harmful aspect of prolonged domination by men. Women’s faculty of reasoning would inevitably atrophy in a system that denied them the opportunity to exercise it. Such a mental state permits the perpetuation of slavery. Rokeya compared this state to an addiction: “How strong habits are! We desire the badges of slavery [jewelry] since we are accustomed to slavery just as an alcoholic hankers after a drink! … Your jewelry, of which you are so proud, is nothing but badges of slavery. Prisoners wear handcuffs made of iron, we wear bracelets made of gold or silver. Our gem-studded chokers are probably imitated from dog-collars.”38