[ALOCHONA] 8th May a comparative discussion: Begum Rokeya and Taslima Nasreen

People of Bangladesh had celebrated the International Woman's Day yesterday with a dew respect. On 9^th December we would also commemorate the Begum Rokeya day in memory of the First Muslim Women Educationist who fought for the equal rights of man and woman in Bengal.

 

Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain was died on 9 December 1932; she was born in 1880 in a village called Pairaband in the district Rangpur. Widely regarded as Bengal's earliest and boldest feminist writer, Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain was a pioneering and creative educationist and social activist, and the school she founded in Kolkata, the Sakhawat Memorial School for Girls, still thrives.She was also a social activist, who organized middle-class women in undertaking slum development and training poor women in incomegenerating activities.

 

Her style of writing was in a way to raise popular consciousness; she used humour, irony and satire to focus attention on the injustices faced by Bengali Muslim women. She criticized oppressive social customs forced upon women in the name of religion, asserting that the glory of God could be best displayed by women fulfilling their potential as human beings.

 

She wrote several novels and essays, her best known publications are Sultana's Dream (1905), Padmarag (1924), Motichur (1903) and Abarodhbasini (1931). Sultana's Dream, written in English (to test her proficiency in English), is a delightful ironical and satirical work set in Ladyland, where the men are in curtain „purdah" and the women go out and work.

 

And the irony of Bengali history is that, what Begum Rokeya achieved at the end of 19th century as a pioneer of women's liberation movement in undivided Bengal; Taslima Nasreen - a writer on trial - did not achieve even at the end of 20th century. Taslima has been rejected by the same Bengali society after 100 years. Does Taslima push the boundaries of religious tolerance?

 

-Mir Monaz Haque, Berlin

 

__._,_.___

[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.]
To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.com

Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe

__,_._,___