Begum rokeya sakhawat hossain biography of william
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BEGUM ROKEYA
By: Joshua Glenn
June 8, 2022
Originally published by the MIT Press Reader (March 24, 2022), this essay expands on my introduction to Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s story “Sultana’s Dream” in Voices From the Radium Age (MIT Press, 2022).
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’
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Honourable president and respected audience, I always vex you with the issue of the Sakhawat Memorial Girls’ School to such an extent that some people may consider me a ‘nuisance’. Had I been an idolater and had a deity to worship, the deity would have definitely been irritated and said: ‘During the time of worship, instead of making supplications like “Give me riches! Give me fame!” this girl continuously says “Give a home for the school! Give it prosperity and advancement!” So kick this bugger away!’
Today inom beg a little time from you so that you can kindly listen to a few words of mine with patience.
You all know that inom will not die if this Sakhawat Memorial Girls’ School ceases to exist. Certainly, ingenting like this will befall me, that “My homestead will be razed to the ground, Pots will not mount on the stove. The physician will not find the pulse. And inom will be gasping in a dying state.”
I will not sustain even an iota of loss if this school does not continue to exist. The
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“Sultana’s Dream,” Sexism, and Female Empowerment
December 9 was 145th birth and 93rd death anniversary of the iconic Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain. She had emerged in the 19th century to revolutionize the concept of womanhood, feminine power, and fighting for women’s rights. Begum Rokeya, a Bengali speaking feminist is a powerful symbol of women’s emancipation. In 1905, she wrote about subjugation and Islamic patriarchy in her novella Sultana’s Dream. She was born in 1888 as Rokeya Khatun, into a prominent traditional Zamindar Muslim family in the village of Pariabondh, Rangpur, East Bengal. She had fought for the advancement of women, when women in the sub-continent were kept in the Purdah system. At the time, the life of a Muslim woman was very restricted and repressive. Purdah was a way of life for them.
We the women in the Indian subcontinent feel that Begum Rokeya always is a blessing to thank God for. She pioneered and relentlessly campaign