Sultana's Dream Read online

  The relationship between a woman socialized to be dependent on men and on her husband in particular, Rokeya contended, is bound to be that of master and slave, no matter what flattering terms men used to denote it. She reminded her readers that the Bengali term for husband, swami, literally means “master.” She elaborated her point by referring to Rama and Sita, the couple extolled as ideal in the Hindu epic Ramayana:

  Rama’s relationship with Sita … is exactly that of a boy and his favorite doll. A boy may be terribly fond of his toy; he may miss it awfully when he is away from it …; if it is stolen, he may be mad at the stealer; he may be overjoyed when he gets it back yet he may throw it in the mud the next moment for no good reason at all—but the doll does not do anything for it is lifeless…. In the Ramayana, Rama acts in a similar fashion and demonstrates fully his status as Sita’s swami, but what about Sita? Did Rama ever act in a way which showed that Sita also has feelings?39

  Rokeya was convinced that only a truly educated and liberated woman deserves to be an equal partner of her husband. She compared a household where such a relationship exists with a well-sprung carriage, its wheels (husband and wife) running smoothly, at a well-coordinated pace, neither one advancing ahead of the other. Certainly this is an infinitely better image than that presented by the majority of couples of the time, who exhibited an enormous cultural and educational gap and lack of communication. She transposed the intellectual image to a physical one and made fun of it:

  Dear reader, take a look at yourself in the mirror. Your right side is the male half and the left side is female…. Your right arm is thirty inches long and quite strong. Your left arm is twenty-four inches long and thin…. The right shoulder reaches to five feet while the left shoulder reaches up to only four feet…. How do you like the image you present?40

  Rokeya reserved the argument most likely to convince opponents of women’s education for the last salvo, showing how necessary formal education is for the smooth and efficient running of a modern household. To keep pace with the demands of changing times, a good housewife needed to know so much more than what was taught her—a few pages of Urdu primer, very simple arithmetic, and five hundred recipes for preserves and pickles, but nothing about nutrition, diet, nursing, or child psychology, not to mention other subjects. “Education is the first requisite for motherhood, because a mother is the first and the most important teacher and trainer of a child.”41 This was a familiar argument, used by the non-Muslim Bengali reformers before Rokeya. It was an argument that even the traditionalists found hard to refute. Luckily for Rokeya’s conscience, she sincerely believed in the significance of the early environment in molding human character and in the central role a mother plays in that setting. Consequently she was able to put her conviction behind the argument.

  Rokeya anticipated the likelihood of the proponents of orthodoxy considering her a radical; she certainly wrote like one. However, she opposed extreme measures. In fact, she was against the excesses of seclusion, which obstructed women’s education and development as human beings, but was not against the principles of purdah, which were concerned with modesty and decorum. She argued: “Veiling is not natural, it is ethical. Animals have no veils.”42 Rokeya pointed out that veiling, in the sense of protecting oneself from public exposure, was present in all civilized societies. “By purdah I mean covering the body well, not staying confined.”43 On the question of what sort of purdah might be desirable, she had a ready answer: “We shall keep necessary and moderate purdah…. This sort of purdah would not be an obstacle to feminine education. With separate girls’ schools and adequate teachers we could both maintain the obligatory minimum of purdah and still educate our women.”44

  All her life she herself used the burqa when appearing in public. In her schools and among friends and relatives, she covered her head by the anchal (end) of her sari (see frontispiece), following the fashion of other educated women of her time. Rather anticlimactic? Slightly contradictory? Well, no. It was an eminently practical stand, taken by a woman who, despite a strong commitment to ideals and causes, had a strong streak of pragmatism and a clear understanding of the realities of life. Perhaps that is why she succeeded as an activist.

  Though her main concern was the situation and status of Muslim women, she was too well informed to remain unaware of the exploitation and oppression of women in other societies. In The Secluded Ones, her reports include descriptions of the Hindu custom of purdah also. And she realized, unlike many of her Indian sisters, that Western women, despite their apparent freedom, were the victims of Western men who were aided by man-made laws. In her “Delicia Hatya” (“Murder of Delicia,” a free translation of a story written by the popular Victorian novelist Marie Corelli), she highlighted this aspect of Western life: “Alas, law aids those who have money and influence. It is not meant to help vulnerable women like us.”45 A few incidents in Padmaraga, her novel, based on real life stories related by the Hindu and Christian teachers of the Sakhawat Memorial School, show how the women of these communities were oppressed by their guardians.

  As mentioned earlier, Rokeya did not believe that the situation of women could be changed in isolation from the situation of the whole society. Her society ultimately included the whole Indian society. It is surprising to find that this self-taught woman raised in seclusion rose above narrow sectarian feelings and stated, with firm conviction, “Remember, we are Indians first, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh afterwards. It is the duty of every good housewife to make her family members aware of this.”46 Surprising because after the establishment of the Muslim League in 1906, to protect and promote the legal and political rights of Muslims, Muslim political allegiance gradually moved from secular interests to sectarian ones. During her lifetime there were terrible Hindu–Muslim riots, and in 1930 Iqbal, the well-known Muslim poet who wrote in Urdu, proposed the establishment of a separate Muslim state. Rokeya does not seem to have been committed to this separatism. But this is certainly not any indication of a lack of interest in political issues, as she had very strong political opinions. In fact, such a conscious and “aware” citizen could hardly have avoided feeling oppressed under colonial rule. In a letter congratulating the editor of the English daily the Mussalman on the eve of its twentieth anniversary, she wrote (in English): “Anybody who has some experience of public work knows very well how difficult it is to serve one’s country, specially when the interests of the people clash with those of their Governments.”47 Rokeya’s own clash with vested interests in her male-dominated society became more vehement when her dual career of publicist and activist in the women’s cause gathered steam after her husband’s death.

  Eighty years have passed since the publication of “Sultana’s Dream,” well over fifty years since Rokeya’s death. During her lifetime, her work as both a publicist and an activist evoked intense hostility and great admiration. Some of her contemporaries called her a shameless woman, a misanthrope, a radical misguided by the proselytizing propaganda of Christian missionaries, and a sexist. Her works were called inflammatory pamphlets designed to stir up insubordination among women. Others called her the soul and spirit of modern Muslim Bengal personified, the pride of her society, the harbinger of dawn. Within a short time after her death, younger male, and some female, contemporaries of Rokeya became powerful advocates for her cause. The modernization of Turkey and the emancipation of Turkish women from seclusion following the deposition of the Sultan in 1911 greatly influenced the Bengali Muslims. Ismail Hussain Siraji (1880–1931), an influential journalist who went to Turkey in 1912 and was impressed by the contribution of Turkish women to the nation-building efforts; male authors like the well-known poet Nazrul Islam, Moniruzzaman Islamabadi, and Ibrahim Khan; and women like Shamsunnahar Mahmud, the educator, and Begum Sufia Kamal, the poet, were all articulate advocates for women’s education and the moderation of purdah. Their combined efforts gradually changed the attitude of upper-class Muslims toward purdah. Women from the upper and middle classes slowly came o
ut of seclusion to acquire formal education and join various professions.

  How do modern Bangladeshis view Rokeya? They usually pay lip service to her memory on the anniversary of her death. True, some of her essays continue to be included in the school syllabus for the Bangla language course. It is interesting to note, however, that the essays selected are always those written on general social problems, not the women-specific ones discussed here. Her writings became rare until the Bangla Academy took the trouble of publishing Rokeya Racanavali in 1973, soon after Bangladesh came into being. Indeed, until the declaration of the United Nations Decade for Women (1975–1985), interest in studying her works was very limited. Since 1981, however, Rokeya has received attention from scholars (both male and female) studying the situation of Bangladeshi women. The current generation of feminists has found that despite her limitations (chiefly her middle-class bias), the substance of Rokeya’s arguments is still very pertinent, especially in view of the recent resurgence of fundamentalism in many Muslim countries. Her dream of empowering women is a dream they also share and work for. In recent seminars marking the end of the United Nations Decade for Women, angry statements were made about the negligence shown by her society in not erecting a suitable public monument in recognition of Rokeya’s contributions. But why is a monument necessary when every educated Bangladeshi woman is a living memorial to this extraordinary woman?

  Notes to Rokeya: An Introduction to Her Life

  1. Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, Rokeya Racanavali (Dhaka: Bangla Academy, 1973), p. 319. All translations of quotations from this volume are by Roushan Jahan from the original Bangla text.

  2. Motahar Hossain Sufi, Begum Rokeya: Jivan O Sahitya (Begum Rokeya: Life and Works) (Dhaka: University Press Ltd., 1986), p. 3.

  3. The dedication is not included in the Rokeya Racanavali and consequently did not form a part of Roushan Jahan’s Inside Seclusion: The Avarodhbasini of Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, which was published by Women for Women, Dhaka, in 1981. The edition of Avarodhbasini printed by the Nari Kalyan Sangstha of Dhaka in 1982 does carry this dedication to her mother.

  4. Laila Zaman, Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain (Dhaka: Bangla Academy, 1987), p. 10, quoted from Dr. Muhammad Shamsul Alam, Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain: Jivani O Sahitya Karma (Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain: Life and Literary Works), Ph.D. diss., Chittagong University, 1985.

  5. Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, “Lukano Ratan” (“Hidden Treasure”), in Rokeya Racanavali, pp. 285–86.

  6. Ibid., p. 76.

  7. Shamsunnahar Mahmud, Rokeya Jivani (Biography of Rokeya) (Dacca: School Text Book Board, 1958), p. 18.

  8. Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, Rokeya Racanavali, p. 319.

  9. Motahar Hossain Sufi, Begum Rokeya, p. 10.

  10. There is some confusion about the exact age of Rokeya at the time of her wedding. In the introduction to her collected letters, the editor calculated that Rokeya was eighteen at the time (Patre Rokeya Pariciti [Knowing Rokeya through Her Letters], ed. Moshfequa Mahmud [Dacca: Bangla Academy, 1965], p. 2). However, in the dedication to Motichur, Part Two, Rokeya herself states that she stayed in Bhagalpur, where she moved soon after the wedding, for fourteen years. As she left Bhagalpur for Calcutta in 1910, we are persuaded to conclude that Rokeya was married in 1896, when she was sixteen.

  11. Shudha Mazumdar, A Pattern of Life: The Memoirs of an Indian Woman, ed. Geraldine H. Forbes (Columbia, Mo.: South Asia Books and New Delhi: Manohar Book Service, 1977).

  12. Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, Rokeya Rancanavali.

  13. Ibid., p. 8, quoted from Mukunda Deva Mukhopadhyaya, Amar Dekha Lok (People I Have Seen).

  14. Ibid., p. 8.

  15. There is a widespread notion that Rokeya’s school was the first to be established by a Muslim woman to educate Muslim girls. The first school for Muslim girls was established in 1897 in Calcutta under the patronage of Begum Ferdous Mahal, the Begum of the Nawab of Murshidabad. In 1909, another school for Muslim girls was founded under the patronage of Khojesta Akhtar Banu of the Suhrawardy family. Nothing much is known about the role of these schools in spreading education among Muslim girls of Calcutta. Credit for being the first Muslim woman to establish a girls’ school (not specifically limited to Muslim girls, however) in Bengal belongs to Nawab Faizunnessa, the famous zemindar, social worker, and writer of Comilla. This school was established in 1873, seven years before Rokeya’s birth (Morshed Shafiul Hasan, Begum Rokeya: Samaya O Sahitya [Begum Rokeya: Time and Literary Works] [Dhaka: Bangla Academy, 1982], pp. 14, 36). As a former student of this excellent school, I am happy to note that the Faizunnessa Girls’ High School is still functioning as one of the top girls’ schools in Bangladesh.

  16. In The Secluded Ones, Report Eleven describes the pre-wedding confinement of the daughters of this stepdaughter. Rokeya attended the wedding ceremony in 1926. Report Twenty-five describes incidents from an earlier visit.

  17. Shamsunnahar Mahmud, “Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain,” The Begum, February 16, 1964, p. 29. For a discussion of the lives of Brahmo women, see Meredith Borthwick, The Changing Role of Women in Bengal, 1849–1905 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984).

  18. Motahar Hossain Sufi, Begum Rokeya, p. 36.

  19. Roushan Jahan, Inside Seclusion, p. 19.

  20. In South Asian usage, the term English applies to all members of the English-speaking colonial ruling class.

  21. For more on the debate in literary circles, see Ghulam Murshid’s The Reluctant Debutante: Response of Bengali Women to Modernization (Rajshahi: Rajshahi University, 1983).

  22. Michael Edwardes, Raj: The Story of British India (London: Pan Books, 1969), p. 302. Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1774–1833) was a Hindu social and religious reformer who founded the Brahmo Samaj in 1828 as a religious association; it later became a reform movement. It was influenced by Unitarianism and many of its members tried consciously to emulate the fashions and manners of the English colonial rulers.

  23. Anisuzzaman, Muslim Manos O Bangla Sahitya (Muslim Thought and Bengali Literature) (Dacca: Dacca University, 1964), p. 90.

  24. In the era under discussion, polygamy was widely prevalent, especially among high-caste Brahmins. Child marriage was widely practiced; most girls were married off before they were nine years old. As marriage was regarded as a sacrament, widows were not permitted to remarry. Men, however, could marry as often as they liked. Divorce was not allowed. Purdah was strictly observed even by the Hindus and obtructed women’s formal schooling.

  25. Ghulam Murshid, The Reluctant Debutante, pp. 43, 253-54.

  26. Fatima Mernissi, Beyond the Veil: Male–Female Dynamics in a Modern Muslim Society (Cambridge, Mass.: Schenkman Publishing, 1975).

  27. See Patricia Meyer Spacks, The Female Imagination (New York: Knopf, 1975), for a detailed discussion of anger in English and U.S. women authors.

  28. The Tagores were a rich and influential Brahmo family of Calcutta. Many of them were talented poets, novelists, singers, and fashion trendsetters. The best known of them all was Rabindranath Tagore, poet, educator, painter, and the first Indian to win the Nobel prize for literature (in 1913).

  29. Ghulam Murshid, The Reluctant Debutante. See also Chitra Deb, Thakurbarir Andarmahale (In the Inner Apartments of the Tagore House) (Calcutta: Ananda Publishers, 1980).

  30. Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, Rokeya Racanavali, p. 43.

  31. Introduction to ibid., p. 13.

  32. “Strijatir Abanati” (“The Degradation of Women”), in ibid., p. 27.

  33. “Padmaraga” (“Ruby”), in ibid., p. 329.

  34. “Strijatir Abanati,” in ibid., p. 28.

  35. Ibid., pp. 29–30.

  36. Ibid., p. 30.

  37. Ibid., p. 36.

  38. Ibid., p. 20.

  39. “Ardhongi” (“The Female Half”), in ibid., p. 37.

  40. Ibid., p. 38.

  41. “Sugrihini” (“The Good Housewife”), in ibid., p. 53.

  42. “Borka” (“The Veil”), in ibid., p. 57.

 
; 43. Ibid., p. 57.

  44. Ibid, pp. 60–62.

  45. “Delicia Hatya,” in ibid., p. 170.

  46. “Sugrihini,” in ibid., p. 54.

  47. Quoted in Motahar Hossain Sufi, Begum Rokeya, p. 1.

  *The small Parsi community in South Asia is descended from Persian Zoroastrians, who migrated to India many centuries ago. They retain their distinctive religion, live mainly in western India, and tend to marry within the group. Parsis were among the first to work with the British during colonial times, to accept English education, and to allow women to wear western dress.

  Afterword Caging the Lion: A Fable for Our Time

  Hanna Papanek

  ROKEYA SAKHAWAT HOSSAIN’S STORY, written so long ago, is just right for our time, a time when social and religious movements in many countries and many religions want to use women, once again, to show that men are right-minded. Fundamentalist Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and Buddhists of many kinds are propagating similar messages in many parts of the world. It all seems so simple: There is something wrong in the world and one way to fix it is to put women “in their place,” a place most women would not choose for themselves. Rokeya’s most important message speaks directly to this point. She rebukes women for failing to recognize and act on their self-interest in a passage where the Guide tells the Dreamer:

  “Why do you allow yourselves to be shut up? You have neglected the duty you owe to yourselves and you have lost your natural rights by shutting your eyes to your own interests.”

  This must have been heady advice to Rokeya’s readers and explains her passionate commitment to female education. It is no less relevant today.

  The quiet revolution in women’s lives—the emancipation and education of more than a few—which was once safely launched is again endangered today by indirect threats to women’s ability to perceive and choose their options. To be sure, more women are going to school in countries around the world and more women are taking jobs outside the home. But at the same time, and in the same places where educational enrollments and employment figures are rising, there are social and religious movements that seek to limit women’s options in other ways. In the United States, for example, movements that seek to prohibit all women’s access to abortion and contraception, and similar movements in parts of Europe that oppose the granting of divorces, all use religious traditions as a basis for trying to change public morality and private behavior.