Digital Narrative : Sultana's Dream
Hello friends I am Nidhi Dave student of Department of English. This thinking Activity given by professor Yesha Ma'am. Here i discuss about some questions of Sultana's Reality.
1. Concept of Andarmehel – the universe of Women
2. Observation of females and their connection with books.(Colonial education movement)
3. Compare both narrative technique
Sultana's Dream
Rokeya Sakhawat:
Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain is remembered as the greatest Muslim feminist and a pioneer of women's Liberation movement in India. Despite Icoming from a highly conservative Muslim family, she went on to become a writer and educationalist with a great zeal in social reform to help women play a greater part in society. She was popularly known as Begum Rokeya.
She was born in 1880 in an orthodox Muslim family in the village of Pairabondh in Rangpur district. During her time, English education was not considered fit for English education and therefore, she remained confined at home along with her sister to study Arabic. It was her brother who taught her English and Bengali and inspired her to write. Rokeya was married off at an early age of 16 to Syed Sakhawat Hossain, the deputy magistrate of Bhagalpur in Bihar. He supported Rokeya and propagated the idea that education among women is the best way to cure ills of the society. 11 years later Syed died and Rokeya founded a school for girls in Bhagalpur in the memory of her husband.
She was also a great novelist of her time who wrote about the injustices faced by Bengali Muslim women. In her writings, she condemned the oppression of women conducted in the name of religion. Some of her notable works include Sultana's Dream (1905), Padmarag (1924), Motichur (1903) and Abarodhbasini (1931). All her writings put forward the idea of humanism.
Sultana's Dream:
Sultana's Dream is a 1905 Bengali feminist utopian story written by Begum Rokeya, also known as Rokeya Sahkawat Hossain, a Muslim feminist, writer and social reformer from Bengal. It was published in the same year in Madras-based English periodical The Indian Ladies Magazine.
As the first magazine in India established and edited by a woman for women, the periodical was an ideal fit for Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain's "Sultana's Dream," one of the earliest science fiction stories written by a woman. In Rokeya's feminist utopia, women rule the world as society lives peacefully and prospers through their inventions of solar ovens, flying cars, and cloud condenser, which offer abundant, clean water to the population of "Ladyland." And the men, who are deemed "fit for nothing, are shut inside their homes.
Sultana's is a woman's dream world where women get to be in charge for once in a futuristic society called Ladyland where men are disenfranchised and women are privileged with good educations and good jobs. This may seem like aggressive feminism, but it really isn't; in order to make sense of the confrontational tone of the novel, the reader should know about Purdah, the Muslim practice of rejecting women from religious practice. The Purdah is what Begum Rokeya is mostly criticizing, which should help to bring some of the novel's religious ideas into focus.
1. Concept of Andarmehel – the universe of Women:
Beginning with the meaning of what is Andar mahal; Andar mahal or inner chambers is also known as Zenana, it is a part of a house for the seclusion of Women. The very first chapter of ‘Sultana’s Reality' talks about Andar mahal ‘an inner world of their own’. One of the essential aspects of this story is the presentation of women as educated leaders of the land during a time when education, especially the knowledge of English was imparted to men. The reform movements taking shape during this period, discussed women education in the context of them being suitable wives and mothers (Hasan,2012) ‘Sultana’s Dream’ makes a departure from this thought, illustrating women education as a necessity in order to make them responsible citizens rather than commendable housewives, for the gradual progress of the country. It is interesting to note how Rokeya presents this entire departure of thought and practice as a right of women to education rather than a privilege. She further illustrates Ladyland as a country where women education is must, presence of all-girls’ schools and colleges and marriages are not before the age of twenty one. This endorsement of women education and them running the country acts as a demonstration of woman power over male dominance. However, the avenue of education has a larger political context that is delineated through the use of language in the story.
Andar mahal can be considered to be a universe of women because it was the only place where they were safe from the men. In a compact, caged place, they were free to dance, sing, enjoy, writing poetry, gossip about husbands and making jokes on them. this is the story of the Andermehel.
2. Observation of females and their connection with books.(Colonial education movement)
The use of English language in writing the story acts against the ‘linguistic colonialism’ (Alam, 2006:xv) prevalent during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With the advent of the East India Company, and subsequent British Rule over Bengal and the rest of India, English as a language was introduced in the curriculum to make indigenous people accustomed to the language and able for official work (ibid:182). But, this English education was mostly restricted to a part of the society, majorly Hindus whereas Muslims especially the Muslim women were restricted from it. Sayyid Ahmed Khan started a socio-cultural movement to introduce English education for the Muslims, so that they did not lag behind (Sevea,2011), similarly Rokeya was also involved in campaigns arguing for English education for women (Hasan,2012:190 from Hossain, 2006:491). During this time, her learning English, and publishing a story about an utopian land in English, familiarizes the concept of educated women and demonstrates the need for education of women. It also establishes English as a language being used by a native woman for creation of literature and not for official work. However, education is not the only issue that has been highlighted in ‘Sultana’s Dream’.
The dream sequence in the story acts as an imagery towards the preservation of environment and hints at the ecological mismanagement carried on by the imperial power. In Ladyland, there are no road or railways, there is on the contrary a green carpet on which people walk. Unlike colonial Bengal, where men think horticulture to be a waste of time, it is of immense importance here and there is no use of coal or chimneys in the kitchen as cooking is done using solar power, hence pollution is controlled. This entire structure of Ladyland might be read as a territorial metaphor to reflect a shift from the colonial pattern of land use.
Through ‘Sultana’s Dream’, Hossain unfamiliarizes the familiar, signaling towards the emergence of a new-world free from dominance of power. Her focus on the purdah, women education and English language becomes a marker of the nineteenth century reform movements carried on for women education. Additionally, Sultana’s Dream remains one of the first stories to be authored in English by a women in colonial times (Tharu,1991:340), thus making a distinct mark in the oeuvre of Indian Literature in English.
3, Compare both narratives of Sultana's Dream and Reality.
Sultan's Dream is the story of the utopian world, while Sultana's reality is the prequel of Sultana’s Dream. The imagining of feminist utopia focuses on whether a gender equal utopia can exist. A world without patriarchal oppression and gender binaries which is beyond the violence gender itself produces within the lives of people, a feminist utopia imagines a world without gender binaries and gender discrimination.
The story constantly reminds the reader of the social and religious customs plaguing women’s emancipation. She focuses on women’s need to attain more education and challenge customs like child marriage and Purdah system. Rokeya draws information from her own childhood memories where women including her mother and other female members of the family observed the Purdah system and the way her sister was married off before the age of fifteen. Through the story, she attempts to bring the issues that hindered women’s emancipation. She comments on the same through highlighting the sexual transformation of Purdah system from being about seclusion of women to male seclusion.
Through Sultana’s Dream which was written during colonial rule, Rokeya attempts to highlight the relevance of equality, women’s education and freedom. In addition to this, Rokeya through this story, quite successfully ridicules patriarchal oppression faced by Muslim women.
Sultana’s Dream is based on an imagined Ladyland where women Can access public spaces unrestricted by social or religious customs.
However, for a 21st century reader, at first glance the story may seem as recreating structures of domination and inequality but it focuses majorly on how the adversities of patriarchal oppression impacted the lives of Muslim women in the late 19th century. Sultana’s Dream is a feminist utopia as it attempts to challenge patriarchal oppression by providing women with a lesson on self determination and worth.
Sultana’s Dream hardly questions the discrimination perpetuated through gender binaries. It attempts to make sexual role reversals in which men are shown as the inferior sex. However, it narrowly questions the violence and discrimination perpetuated through the category of gender. Since, it provides a critique of patriarchy and the affect of it on women’s lives but barely examines caste and class backgrounds in perpetuating inequalities and discrimination among individuals.
Thank you
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