Importance Of Rokeya

Rokeya’s English Writings: Relevance and Resilience to Women Education

It is already mentioned that this study will focus on Rokeya’s three English pieces— Sultana’s Dream, “God gives, Man robs” and “Educational Ideals for the Modern Indian Girl”. Detailed analysis and logical arguments with references to the texts are given below to explore the above sub-title:

Sultana’s Dream

Rokeya composed Sultana's Dream in 1905 to test her proficiency in English and her husband persuaded her to publish it in the Madras-based English language periodical the “Indian Ladies Magazine.” Though it was well-received in that community, but Sultana’s Dream was “unavailable to the majority of Indian womanhood among whom only the very privileged could read and

Hence, in the Ladyland number of Universities has been founded where women are engaged in various kinds of research like the storm-stopping machines, creation of flying cars, artificial fountains and solar-heat machines etc. Susmita Roye describes:

Sultana’s dream-world is one where women run universities and are great scientists. They are one and all highly educated and are also in control of the educational system of their community. Sister Sara mentions that she works in the laboratory and describes to Sultana the various scientific wonders achieved by their women. That is indeed only possible in a dream for both Sultana and Rokeya. Rokeya lived in a world where she was allowed only a narrow traditional religious education at home, suited to limit the mental horizons of aspiring girls and to equip them solely for a confined life as a wife and mother. In fact, it served to entrench in them a complacence with their confinement and so they never recognised the lamentable lowliness of their condition. However, Rokeya was secretly taught Bengali and English by her eldest brother, who was in favour of female

Later, her husband actively fostered her education and encouraged her to write. Consequently, in spite of never having been to a school to learn, Rokeya grew into an exceptionally knowledgeable woman. Her struggle to achieve this feat indicates the strength of prejudice against female education in her culture. (141)

In Padmarag, she depicts an ideal system of female education where almost all branches of learning–science, literature, geography, history, and mathematics are taught. She formulated a “curriculum [that] included physical education, handicrafts, sewing, cooking, nursing, home economics, and gardening, in addition to regular courses such as Bangla, English, Urdu, Persian, and Arabic” (Jahan, 42 quoted in Hasan, “Commemorating” 50) for her Sakhawat Memorial Girls’