Article by EIH Researcher and Writer
Sadaf Jawed
Much before Simone de Beauvoir became the inspiration for the modern, free thinking and rebellious women, Rashid Jahan had already taken the world of Urdu literature by storm.
Born in 1905 in Aligarh she received her early education from the women’s college at the Aligarh Muslim University founded by her father Sheikh Abdullah. Jahan left Aligarh to join the Isabella Thoburn College in Lucknow in 1921. Later, she moved to Lady Hardinge Medical College, Delhi, to study medicine.
Rashid Jahan was a multifaceted woman, a medical doctor, an avowed communist, a pioneering social activist and one of the founding members of the Progressive Writers’ Association (PWA) who dared to challenge oppressive societal structure. Rashid Jahan was one of the foremost feminists of the 20th century who carved out a space for women to talk about issues that shaped their life like religion, science, their bodies, sexuality, and modernity. She was the literary forerunner of writers like Ismat Chugtai who later said that, ” She (Rashid Jahan) spoiled me because she was very bold and would speak all sorts of things openly and loudly, and I just wanted to copy her,”
Her writings challenged the oppression of women and took issue with the implications of patriarchy and faith. Rashid Jahan’s bold attack on cherished aspects of the elite social setup marked an important departure from what was being talked about in the literary fields and brought issues of the body and sexuality to the agenda of reform. This earned her the title of Urdu literature’s first ‘Angry Young Woman’, and later became ‘notorious’ for pushing the boundaries of how ‘shareef’ (respectable) women were supposed to behave. The roots of Jahan’s ‘notoriety’ lay in the controversy of 1932 that would forever give her the title ‘Angareywali’.
In 1932, three angry young men and a woman — Sajjad Zaheer, Ahmed Ali, Mahmuduzzafar and Rashid Jahan — published a collection of their short stories and plays entitled ‘Angarey’. It contained a short story “Dilli ki Sair” (A Tour of Delhi) and a play “Parde ke Peeche” (From Behind the Veil) by Rashid Jahan. By her stories she aimed at drawing the reader into the forbidden women’s quarter, and letting them see the brittle lives trapped there. It created quite an uproar in the conservative circles of the United Provinces, resulting in a ban on the book in March, 1933 and Rashid Jahan became notorious as “Angareywali”. She continued to be a bold and provocative woman till her untimely death in 1957 due to Cancer. Her works laid the groundwork for the nascent feminism which had begun to take roots in South Asia. The spark that Jahan lit in the form of feminist writings continues to burn even today.
References :
Shadab Bano, ‘Rashid Jahan’s Writings: Resistance and Challenging Boundaries, Angaare and Onwards’, Indian Journal of Gender Studies.
Carlo Coppola and Sajida Zubair, ‘Rashid Jahan: Urdu literature’s first ‘Angry young woman’, Journal of South Asian Literature Vol. 22.
Neetu Khanna, ‘Three Experiments in Subaltern Intimacy’, University of Southern California
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/a-spark-that-lit-the-fire/
