HIS 101
Topic:
Assignment
SUBMITTED TO:
Zerina Shabnaz Akkas
Assistant Professor
Department of History & Philosophy
Date of Submission: 30/04/2021
SUBMITTED BY:
Name: Md. Atikur Rahman
Id: 1831472030
Course: HIS101
Section: 4
Begum Rokeya's Educational Thoughts and Contribution to Bengali
Women's Education
Abstract: The nineteenth century was the time of the Renaissance in unified Bengal under English
principle. It had started with Raja Rammohan Roy and proceeded by the realists like Vidyasagar,
Keshab Chandra Sen, and others. Reconstruction spirits influenced the Hindu Bengali society as
well as influenced Muslim Bengali society. The stimulus for renewal inside the Muslim people
group happened in the late nineteenth century and proceeded in the mid twentieth century. Begum
Rokeya was the mother of the Muslim Arousing in unified Bengal. She had a place with the
gathering of ladies who were called Bengali „bhadramahila'- a comparative idea as „New Women‟
authored by Virginia Woolf. She committed her life to the liberation of Muslim ladies who were
to follow harsh strict practices like purdah and others. She understood that Muslim ladies ought to
be given the chance for schooling. Throughout the entire existence of Ladies schooling of India,
she was a huge figure who was sufficiently bold and couldn't have cared less about the solid
reactions of the strict heads (Maulabi) of the Muslim people group. In the current paper, an exertion
has been given to analyzing basically the instructive musings of Begum Rokeya and her
commitment to the upliftment of ladies' schooling in unified Bengal under the control of the
English rulers.
Introduction: Throughout the entire existence of ladies' freedom in colonized India, Begum
Rokeya(1880-1932) resembled the shaft star controlling and showing the Muslim society the
correct method to be followed opposing every one of the social and strict deterrents in the way of
advancement. She battled hard to bring the Muslim ladies inside the circle of training. So she is
appropriately considered as the forerunner of ladies' schooling in the Muslim society of unified
Bengal during English standard.
She was brought into the world in a town named Pairabondh in the Rangpur region of unified
Bengal in the year 1880.Her dad was Zahiruddin Muhammad Abu Ali Saber.Her mother was
Rahatunnessa. She needed to live in the background from the age of five like all female individuals
from her family. She had a profound furor for concentrating in the beginning of her life. In a time
when ladies' schooling was disregarded, Rokeya‟s sibling furtively instructed her to peruse and
compose English and Bengali. In the year 1896, her dad orchestrated her marriage when she was
sixteen to a single man named Khan Bahadur Syed Sakhawat Hossain who was almost forty years
of age at the hour of marriage. Sakhawat Hossain was a man of liberal and reformist thoughts. He
helped her in their examinations and made every one of the game plans for her investigations.
Later with his assistance, she began to distribute her works in Indian periodicals of that time. Her
cheerful days didn't keep going long as her significant other passed on startlingly in 1909. After
his demise, she fell in the incredible ocean of hopelessness. However, she was not prepared to
submit before fate. In reality, she had a respectable mission to accomplish. She battled hard and
dedicated her life to the reason for Bengali Muslim women‟s liberation. She felt the requirement
for ladies' schooling and established a girls‟ school for that reason. She passed on of a heart issue
on ninth December 1932. Her significance lies in the way that till the most recent day of her life
she worked for the upliftment of ladies training in Bengal.
She was a productive essayist of both Bengali and English. She composed papers, books, utopias,
sonnets, humor, and sarcastic articles on the privileges of ladies and other social issues of that
time. Her significant other propelled her a great deal in such manner. Her abstract vocation began
in 1902 with a story named „Pipasa'(The Thirst). She composed two collections of articles named
„Motichur-I' and 'Motichur-II'.She composed a novel named „Padmarag' (1924). These
compositions are in Bengali. She likewise composed not many works in English. „Sultan‟s
Dream‟(1908) is one of them. She additionally composed two papers „God Gives, Man
Robs‟(1927) and „Educational Goals for the Indian Young ladies ‟(1931). Through the entirety of
her compositions, she made a decent attempt to advance ladies schooling in Muslim society in
Bengal.
Methodology/sources: Philosophy assumes a significant part in exploration as the legitimacy and
dependability of the discoveries rely upon the embraced techniques for the investigation. This
paper is clear in nature and depends on the optional information gathered from different sources
like books, diaries, articles, and periodicals.
Rokeya's educational perspectives and dedication to women's education:
Rokeya‟s theory of instruction depended on her own background. She was an optimist in her
methodology. She saw how the ladies of the Bengali Muslim people group endured because old
enough old strict standards and man centric strength. To drive away their hopelessness she felt the
requirement for training. She longed for another day break of another age when Muslim ladies
would be dealt with similarly as their male partners. She properly distinguished the reason for the
unspeakable hopelessness of the Muslim lady as the confusion of Islam. She took the promise of
ladies' schooling. Be that as it may, it was anything but a simple undertaking when the Muslim
ladies were segregated from the rest of the world for the sake of strict orders of Islam. Around then
a modest bunch of Muslim ladies having a place with the higher class of the general public got the
chance just for strict investigations by the educators or Maulavis of the close by mosques. The
Maulvis showed them the heavenly Quran in restriction. From the outset, she began to compose
different articles, expositions, books, and so forth on the side of ladies' schooling and their
liberation. With her husband‟s help and consolation, she began a girls‟ school in Bhagalpur. For
that reason her significant other, Syed Sakhawat Hossain gave her a tradition of Rupees 10,000.
Five months after the passing of her significant other, she set up a secondary school there in
memory of her cherished spouse and named it „Sakhawat Commemoration Girls‟ High School‟.It
was begun in Bhagalpur-a generally Urdu-talking territory with just five understudies. In 1910,
she had to shut down the school due to a quarrel over a family property with her progression
daughter‟s spouse. Around the same time, she came to Kolkata (then Calcutta). She didn't leave
the aphorism of her life which was the liberation of Muslim ladies. She re-opened Sakhawat
Commemoration Girls‟ Secondary School here at 13, Waliullah Path on sixteenth Walk 1911.
From the start, there were just eight understudies. Continuously, the quantity of understudies rose
and it got 84 of every 1915. Woman Chelmsford, the spouse of the lead representative general and
Emissary of India assessed the school in 1917. Later it was moved up to a Center Girls‟ School.
In 1931, it was again moved up to a High English Girls‟ School. The school was moved to better
places due to the expansion in the quantity of understudies and some different reasons. In 1931, it
was at 13, European Refuge Path, in 1932 at 162, Lower Round Street, and in 1938 at 17, Master
Sinha Street and Alipur Scurrying House. The school got its lasting location in 1968 when it was
at last moved to 17, Ruler Sinha Street. She ran her Sakhawat Commemoration Girls‟ School for
a very long time battling against ear-puncturing reactions just as different social preventions. She
made a decent attempt and soul to make it the best school for Muslim young ladies. From the start,
the non-Bengali families sent their young ladies to Sakhawat Commemoration Girls‟ Secondary
School. Yet, the Bengali Muslim families were impassive about their girls‟ schooling. So Rokeya
approached and stepped up to the plate of convincing Bengali Muslim families to send their little
girls to her school. She even made the house to house crusade and persuaded the guardians that
purdah would be seen at her school as well. She masterminded a pony drawn carriage so young
ladies could go to class and get back noticing purdah. Later she offered a free transport
administration for the young lady understudies. For noticing purdah she trained to fit the screens
to the windows of the transport. At times the young ladies inside the transport swooned on account
of the absence of ventilation. Later she supplanted the shades with draperies. One of her
companions depicted the transport as a „moving dark hole‟. She was a smart lady who felt the
requirement for different subjects for teaching the Muslim young ladies of that time. She, at the
end of the day, built the educational plan for the young ladies of her school. She remembered the
accompanying subjects for the educational program:
(i)Quran
(ii)English
(iii)Urdu
(iv)Persian
(v)Home nursing
(vi)First-aid
(vii)Cooking
(viii)Sewing
(ix)Physical education
(x)Vocational Training.
Analysis: Rokeya was by essence an educationalist. She got a little help from the English
Government for running her school. Be that as it may, she was not an individual to be crushed so
without any problem. She utilized her private pay to run her school. There was a prudent deterrent
as well as impediments in different regions. She confronted strict reactions and countered them by
composing numerous articles, expositions to separate between evident religion and man-made
religion. Her point in such a manner was to persuade the guardians about the requirement for
schooling in the existence of their daughters. She perceived how Muslim ladies submitted
themselves to their spouses and got no opportunity to question the imbalance natural in Muslim
society. Rokeya needed to break the strict doctrine and needed to educate the ladies that Islam
didn't advance disparity among people.
For the genuine comprehension of the strict tenet in the Quran, she suggested the interpretation of
the sacred book into commonplace dialects. She suggested the perusing of the Quran. Be that as it
may, she didn't uphold the parrot-like recitation of the Heavenly Book. She told that the very truth
uncovered by the Quran ought to be perceived by the Muslim young ladies.
She underscored actual schooling since she accepted that it would make the ladies genuinely more
grounded, fit, and sure. She likewise offered significance to professional preparation because she
imagined that it would make ladies financially autonomous.
She likewise suggested the worth arranged training for making the young ladies ideal girls,
spouses, and moms or submissive little girls, adoring sisters, devoted wives, and informational
moms.
Rokeya set out to conflict with the standards of the Muslim society for the motivation she got
seeing the endeavors made by the English Rulers and the educationalist like Vidyasagar in the
development of ladies' schooling. She was additionally influenced colossally by the logic of Raja
Slam Mohan Roy, Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar, and Keshab Chandra Sen.
She felt the requirement for great educators for giving the best training to the young lady
understudies of Bengal. There was an absence of female educators around then. For making great
female instructors she own self used to prepare them.
Findings: Begum Rokeya was a promoter of ladies' schooling in unified Bengal. Despite being
the partner of Muslim society, she needed to change the well-established viewpoint in regards to
the situation with the Muslim ladies who were being denied even the privilege of people. She saw
that the supposed standard male of the general public deceived the local area for their own
advantage and along these lines, the development of ladies as individuals was hampered. She
genuinely understood that instruction has the force which can show ladies the best approach to
acting naturally dependent, conquerer of baseless dread of bogus biased conviction, and build up
themselves as appropriate people in the public arena. Because of this vision, she set up a school
for the young lady understudies of Bengal. She composed a few books both in Bengali and English
on the side of the training for Muslim girls. She chose the educational program to improve the
intellectual capacity of her students. Her accentuation on professional productivity is like the,
Basic education idea received by Mahatma Gandhi. Her help for open-air schooling is additionally
another side of her reformist present-day instructive musings.
Conclusion: Throughout the entire existence of Ladies instruction of India, Rokeya is an amazing
figure who upheld and battled for women’s freedom and schooling. She was a soothsayer. She felt
that the ladies would be equivalent to the men regarding the information, vision, profitable
reasoning, and knowledge whether they are given the chances. To give them openings and stir
their inward soul for the opportunity, her battle for the instructive chances of the ladies particularly
of the Muslim ladies was truly remarkable throughout the entire existence of Ladies Training of
Bengal. Her instructive ideal was the combination of logic and progress. This made her an
unmistakable educationalist in English overwhelmed India. The activity of ladies' schooling was
first taken up by the Christian Preacher. Vidyasagar’s part in ladies' schooling was laudable as
well. Following the impression of the previous, Begum Rokeya proceeded with her main goal for
the liberation of Muslim young ladies through training. She upheld ladies' schooling however she
had no conventional instruction in the genuine feeling of the term. It is especially bewildering to
us all.
We can close by referencing the meaning of training given by Rokeya in her abstract piece named
‘Stree Jatir Abanati’: "Education doesn't intend to follow a specific country or social standards.
God has given us numerous resources and training intends to develop than normal staff through
difficult work and exercise. It is our obligation to guarantee the legitimate utilization of our
resources. God has given us hands, legs, eyes, ears, brain, and capacity of thought. At the point
when we do benevolent acts with our own hands, see with the eyes, tune in with ears and can think
sensibly, that is called schooling".
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