Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain

Her major works include Matichur (A String of Sweet Pearls, 1904 and 1922), a two-volume collection of essays articulating her feminist ideas; Sultana's Dream (1905), a feminist science fiction novella set in Ladyland, a realm governed by women; Padmarag (Essence of the Lotus, 1924), portraying the struggles of Bengali wives; and Abarodhbasini (The Confined Women, 1931), a bold critique of the extreme purdah system that imperiled women's freedom and self-worth. Rokeya held education to be the central precondition of women's liberation, establishing the first school aimed primarily at Muslim girls in Kolkata. She is said to have gone from house to house persuading the parents to send their girls to her school in Nisha. In 1916, she founded the Muslim Women's Association, an organization that fought for women's education and employment. In 1926, Rokeya presided over the Bengal Women's Education Conference convened in Kolkata, the first significant attempt to bring women together in support of women's education rights. She was engaged in debates and conferences regarding the advancement of women until her death on 9 December 1932, shortly after presiding over a session during the Indian Women's Conference. Bangladesh observes Rokeya Day on 9 December every year to commemorate her works and legacy. On that day, the Bangladesh government also confers the Begum Rokeya Padak on individual women for their exceptional achievement. In 2004, Rokeya was ranked number 6 in the BBC's poll of the Greatest Bengali of all time.

• Name — Begum Rokeya • Birth Name — Rokeya Khatun • Born — 9 December 1880 • Birthplace — Pairaband, Bengal Presidency, British India • Other Names — * Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain • R. S. Hossain • Rokeya Khatoon • Died — 9 December 1932 • Place of death — Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India • Resting Place — Kolkata, West Bengal, India • Occupation — Writer, feminist thinker, educator, activist • Relatives — Karimunnesa Khanam Chaudhurani (sister) Abdul Karim Ghaznavi (nephew) Abdul Halim Ghaznavi (nephew)

• Illustration — The remains of Rokeya's childhood house in Pairaband, Rangpur, pictured in 2012. Rokeya was born in 1880 during the British Raj, to an aristocratic mixed Persian-Bengali Muslim family in the village of Pairaband, Rangpur, Bengal Presidency (now Rangpur, Bangladesh). Her ancestors had migrated from Tabriz in Iran to make their fortune in India and had established a zamindari in Rangpur, they had served in the military and judiciary during the Mughal regime. Her father, Zahiruddin Muhammad Abu Ali Haidar Saber, was a zamindar and a multilingual intellectual. He married four times; his marriage to Rahatunnessa Sabera Chaudhurani resulted in the birth of Rokeya, who had two sisters and three brothers, one of whom died in childhood. Rokeya's eldest brother Ibrahim Saber, and second brother Khalilur Rahman, her immediate elder sister Karimunnesa Khanam Chaudhurani, and Humaira Khatun (youngest sister). Saber and Karimunnesa both had a major influence on her life. Karimunnesa wanted to study Bengali, the language of the majority of Bengali people, against her family's wish, who preferred to use Arabic and Persian as the media of education and communication. Ibrahim taught English and Bengali to Rokeya and Karimunnesa. Karimunnesa married at the age of fourteen and later became a poetess. Both of her sons, Abdul Karim Ghaznavi and Abdul Halim Ghaznavi, became politicians and occupied ministerial portfolios under British authorities.

• Illustration — Rokeya with her husband, Sakhawat Hossain (1898) Rokeya married at the age of 16, in 1898, to 38-year-old Khan Bahadur Sakhawat Hossain. He was an Urdu-speaking deputy magistrate of Bhagalpur (a present-day district of Bihar state). He earned his bachelor of agriculture degree from England and was a member of the Royal Agricultural Society of England. He married Rokeya after the death of his first wife. As a liberal, he encouraged Rokeya to continue learning Bengali and English. He also encouraged her to write, and on his advice, she adopted Bengali as the principal language for her literary works. Rokeya wrote Sultana's Dream (1908) before her husband died in 1909. In Sultana's Dream, Rokeya reversed the roles of men and women in which women were the dominant sex and the men were subordinate and confined to the mardana (the male equivalent of the zenana). She also depicts an alternative, feminist vision of science, in which inventions such as solar ovens, flying cars, and cloud condensers are used to benefit the whole of society. It is regarded as a notable and influential satire. She wrote regularly for the Saogat, Mahammadi, Nabaprabha, Mahila, Bharatmahila, Al-Islam, Nawroz, Mahe Nao, Bangiya Musalman Sahitya Patrika, The Mussalman, Indian Ladies Magazine and others. Five months after Rokeya's husband's death, she established a high school, naming it Sakhawat Memorial Girls' High School. It started in Bhagalpur, a traditionally Urdu-speaking area, with five students. A dispute with her husband's family over property forced her to move the school in 1911 to Calcutta, a Bengali-speaking area. She ran the school for 24 years. Rokeya founded the Anjuman-e-Khawateen-e-Islam (Islamic Women's Association), which was active in holding debates and conferences regarding the status of women and education. She advocated reform, particularly for women, and believed that parochialism and excessive conservatism were principally responsible for the relatively slow development of Muslims in British India. Anjuman-e-Khawateen-e-Islam organised events for social reforms based on the original teachings of Islam that, according to her, were lost.

Rokeya wrote in a number of genres: short stories, poems, essays, novels and satirical writings. She developed a distinctive literary style, characterised by creativity, logic and a wry sense of humour. She started writing in the Nabanoor from about 1903, under the name of Mrs R S Hossain. However, there is an opinion that her first published writing, Pipasa, appeared in the Nabaprabha in 1902. Her writings called upon women to protest against injustices and break the social barriers that discriminated against them.

• Pipasha ("Thirst") (1902) • Matichur 1st Vol. (Essays) (1904) • Matichur 2nd Vol. (Essays) (1922) The second volume includes stories and fairy tales: • Saurajagat (The Solar System), • Delicia Hatya (translation of the Murder of Delicia – Marie Corelli) • Jnan-phal (The Fruit of Knowledge) • Nari-Srishti (Creation of Women) • Nurse Nelly • Mukti-phal (The Fruit of Emancipation) • Sultana's Dream (1905) • Padmarag ("Essence of the Lotus") (novel) (1924) • Abarodhbasini ("The Secluded Women") (1931) • Boligarto (short story) • Narir Adhikar ("The Rights of Women"), an unfinished essay for the Islamic Women's Association • God Gives, Man Robs (1927) • Education Ideals for the Modern Indian Girl (1931)

• Begum Rokeya Day, a commemoration of the birth and death anniversary of Rokeya, is observed annually on 9 December in Bangladesh. • Begum Rokeya Padak, a Bangladeshi national honour conferred on individual women for their exceptional achievements. • Begum Rokeya Memorial Center, an academic and cultural hub in Pairaband, Bangladesh. • Begum Rokeya Avenue, a street in Dhaka. • Begum Rokeya University, a public state university in Bangladesh. • Rokeya Hall, the largest female residential hall of the University of Dhaka. Khulna University of Engineering and Technology, Bangladesh Agricultural University, and Rajshahi University also have a female residential hall named after Begum Rokeya. • Sakhawat Memorial Govt. Girls' High School, Kolkata, West Bengal. • Begum Rokeya Smriti Balika Vidalaya in Saltlake, West Bengal. • Alokbortika (Bengali: আলোকবর্তিকা, lit. 'torch bearer') is a commemorative statue of Begum Rokeya, in Rangpur City, unveiled in 2020.