INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH CULTURE SOCIETY

Art and Activism always welcomes new hope and new possibilities of change in the structure and tradition, culture and value, system and politics. In the duration of the change, one or the other remains privileged or unprivileged. In the social history of India, the feminist discourse spectacularly remained silent but it was in the nascent stage  and with some writers writing in Indian English and Into-English writing. Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain was engaged in uplifting and contributing for women through their art and activism. The paper will explore the contribution of Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, (1880-1932) and her literary activism to uplift the muslim women. Her act for change may be called an Islamic Feminism because she had emphasised her project to bring change to Muslim women in culture, tradition and life style. Rokeya engaged her life for social reform, writing and education having a purposeful trajectories for Muslim girls. She founded the Sakhawat Memorial Girls’ in Calcutta that inculcates modern subjects, awareness of hygiene and economically independence and primarily the dissemination of education in Muslim Girls in Bengal. She addresses her readers through her short story “Sultana’ Dream” (1905) in which she critiques male chauvinist system and its hypocrisy. The short story is here an art form and symbolic dissemination of her purpose for change in the status of women in general but more specifically she had an apparent purpose for Muslim girls and community progress. She had also founded Anjuman-e-Khawateen (Islamic Women’s Association) for the above purpose. The paper will delve into the literary activism of Rokeya Shakhawat Hussain and her feminist discourse in inclusive development of muslim women.