Contribution of Begum Rokeya to transforming women’s world

BEGUM Rokeya (1880-1932) is the iconic role model of Muslim women’s renaissance of the 20th century who, for the first time, had raised voice against gender biased religious and social discrimination. She led the movement for women’s education and awakening from the beginning of the first decade of the twentieth century, a time popularly referred to as the reawakening of the Muslims of Bengal. Born in a Zeminder family of Rangpur - the northern district of the then East Bengal - Rokeya broke out of the fetters of the purdah system and vociferously advocated women’s emancipation.
She strongly believed that to gain freedom of women, three things are obvious: education, economic independence and mobility with moderate purdah, and she worked towards that end with the intellect of a teacher, zeal of a social reformer and conscience of a humanitarian throughout her life.
Begum Rokeya led the way to empowering and enlightening women by founding two major institutions - Sakhawat Memorial Girls’ School and Anjuman-e-Khawatin-e-Islam. She could feel that uniting the womenfolk along with education was important to establish their rights in the society.  
Begum Rokeya, the ancestor of a family where strict purdah was maintained and women were not allowed to read any book except the Holy Quran. But she focused again and again on the evils of purdah. She clearly explained her distinction between abarodh and purdah. She welcomed purdah as female property and a sign of dignity but she dismissed abarodh as a practice where women were shut off from public space or any public participation. She became self-educated. Rokeya’s elder brother and sister were the key source of help and inspiration of her struggle.  
Rokeya’s personal life was overwhelmed with tragedies with the lack of her mother’s affection, early loss of her husband and loss of her two daughters in infancy. But these pathetic incidences couldn’t stop her journey for women’s right of Muslim community. Begum Rokeya’s systematic and undaunted devotion for women liberation from subjugation of the society inspired her to start educational institutes. Rokeya realised that to achieve emancipation women needed to be educated. Her first successful venture was the establishment of the earliest Muslim girls’ school to begin her life’s work. In 1911 she started a school named after her husband with only eight students and knocked door to door advocating the schooling for girls.
By 1930 the school became a high school with all the grades. She made the school one of the best seats of learning. The curriculum was pragmatic and scientific even in today’s context. She tried to persuade men by saying that women could become better wives if educated.
An early feminist and social reformer in many ways, Rokeya repeatedly focused on child marriage, polygamy, divorce and gender inequality of the Muslim society. Her organisation, Anjuman-e-khawatin-e-Islam or Muslim Women’s Society, strongly fought for women’s educational, economical, legal and political rights. Ignoring harsh comments and impediments from conservatives, she inspired women to join the society to be united. The society arranged marriage for many poor girls; financially helped many widows and gave shelter to orphans and the destitute. It also helped to set up some business for women to be a productive member of the society.
Begum Rokeya fiercely criticised the patriarchal society through her writings. She wrote on vast subjects like social prejudice, adverse effect of purdah system, women’s education, women’s right, women’s awakening, girl child’s right to education, against the tradition of childhood marriage, polygamy etc. She confidently visualised the potential of women through her writing “Sultana’s Dream”.
Her another writing “Abarodhbashini” is a spirited attack of purdah where she presented 47 cases of women oppression by the Muslim society that deterred their lives. Many of her writings were published in different renowned magazines  and drew attention of other women leaders of that time like Sarojini Naidu, Queen Sultan Jahan of Bhopal, Lady Chelmsford, Lady Carmichael etc, who highly praised her and extended cooperation for her deeds. Begum Rokeya was a hard working person who had spent every single day of her short life to reach her destination with firm determination.
To transform a society from the century-old barrier of seclusion is really difficult but the effort of persons like Begum Rokeya helped to overthrow all impediments and paved the way of freedom for women to walk. Rokeya is remembered for her role in women liberation in Bangladesh. Our country has taken many effective steps that Begum Rokeya urged to take for women empowerment. According to The Women Development Policy of Bangladesh, the Constitution of Bangladesh ensures equal rights for women as mentioned in the article no 27, 28, 29, and 65. The women development policy also mentions that the main aim of the policy is to include women in every sector of mainstream development and to establish their equal rights.
The government and other non-government organisations are working together addressing social, economic, political and legal inequality to establish gender equality and equity.  The third Millennium Development Goal (MDG)  aims to promote gender equality and empower women by 2015. In recent years school enrollment of girl children has significantly increased. The government has taken many policies to promote girl children’s education including compulsory free primary education for all. A noticeable number of women are working in many sectors. We now have female engineer, doctor, teacher, banker, pilot, entrepreneur, police, army etc. Still we, as a nation, have not yet achieved what Begum Rokeya dreamt for our women. Almost half of the women population is illiterate till today.
A large number of girl children are deprived of their basic human rights due to unacceptable health, nutrition, education and social condition. In addition, they are exposed to several forms of physical and mental violation at home, educational institutions, work areas and other places. According to recent UNICEF report, almost 50% rural girls are married by age of 15 and 60% become mother by age of 19. They are forced to drop out from school as soon as a marriage proposal comes along. So, most of them cannot become a productive member of the society.
It is high time for problems to be identified and necessary initiatives to be taken in order to recognise women as the country’s equitable citizens. It should be remembered that women constitute half of our total population. So, empowering women is essential for building strong economy, establish democracy and achieve sustainable development for the 21st century. Bangladeshi women are blessed with exemplary role model like Begum Rokeya of their own history to have direction.   

The writer is a teacher and a renowned Tagore song artiste. Email: [email protected]