The rope skipping medal winner from Mumbai chooses clinical psychology over foreign degrees, returning home with determination to serve India through education and awareness
Mumbai :
Ten years after making headlines as a rope skipping champion in Dubai, Mumbai’s Zia Maulvi has returned to India, carrying not just medals but also a mission. At 24, she has chosen to dedicate her life to mental health awareness and service in her own country.
Zia first rose to fame in 2015 when, as a 14-year-old studying in the eighth grade, she represented Maharashtra at the World Inter-School Rope Skipping Championship in Dubai. There, she secured second place and brought home a silver medal. For two years after that, she competed at the national level and collected dozens of gold and silver medals before shifting her focus towards academics.
After scoring 78% in her SSC examinations, Zia pursued her education at Mumbai’s Sophia College, where she chose psychology as her special subject. Her interest in the field deepened over time, eventually guiding her towards international study. In 2023, she left for Canada to join Sir Sandford Fleming College of Applied Arts and Technology, where she successfully completed a two-year diploma in Mental Health and Addiction.
Despite opportunities abroad, Zia decided to return to India in April 2025. Explaining her decision, she told Clarion India: “There is not much awareness about psychology and mental health in India. There are also few psychologists, while I wish to serve the people of my country. My mission will be to try to overcome the growing trend of psychological stress and suicide.”
Currently, Zia is pursuing her Masters in Clinical Psychology at Indira Gandhi National Open University, Delhi. For her, studying in India means staying closer to the real issues faced by Indian society. “The studies in Canada matched the conditions of people there. But my people face different challenges. That is why I chose to study here, where I can directly connect with the needs of my country,” she said.
Alongside her academic journey, Zia has also excelled in martial arts. She has earned a black belt in karate, completed an instructor’s course, and qualified as a judge under the Karate India Organisation.
Zia’s journey from being a sports star to becoming a mental health advocate reflects not only her determination but also her deep sense of responsibility towards society. Those who once applauded her rope skipping feats now watch with pride as she dedicates her life to addressing psychological stress, depression, and the rising cases of suicide among young people in India.
source: http://www.clarionindia.net / Clarion India / Home> Editor’s Pick> India> Indian Muslims / by Team Clarion / September 11th, 2025
Raziya Sultana, wife of a top cop and third time MLA, is the only Muslim legislator in the 117-member Punjab Assembly]
Malerkotla (Punjab):
Raziya Sultana, wife of a top cop and third time MLA, is the only Muslim legislator in the 117-member Punjab Assembly. Congress is set to form its government in the state, and Raziya Sultana as one of the seniormost members in the party, eyes for a key post in the government.
Raziya Sultana, who contested the 2017 Punjab Assembly elections as Congress candidate, defeated her nearest rival Mohammad Owais of Akali Dal by over 12,000 votes. Raziya Sultana is wife of Mohammad Mustafa DGP Punjab who was bestowed with with five gallantry medals.
According to the final result of Punjab Assembly elections declared by the State Election Commission, Raziya Sultana polled a total of 58.982 votes whereas Mohammad Owais could bag just 46,280 votes.
Mohammad Arshad contesting from Malerkotla was the only Muslim candidate of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Mohammad Arshad came a distant third bagging 17,635 votes.
Raziya Sultana was defeated by F. Nesara Khatoon (Farzana Alam) of Akali Dal in the 2012 elections in Malerkotla – the seat she won in 2002 and 2007.
Malerkotla has been represented by Muslims most of the time since 1957. Yusuf Zaman Begum was the first Muslim to win from Malerkotla in 1962. She was followed by H. H. N. I. A. Khan in 1967, Nawab Iftikhar Ali Khan in 1969, Sajida Begum in 1972 and 1980, Anwar Ahmad Khan in 1977, Nusrat Ali Khan in 1985 and 1997 and Abdul Ghaffar in 1992 state elections.
The Punjab Assembly had 02 Muslim MLAs in 2012. Besides, F. Nesara Khatoon (Farzana Alam) of Akali Dal who won from Malerkotla in 2012, Mohammad Sadique of the Congress won from Bhadaur Assembly seat in 2012.
Congress MLA Mohammad Sadique contested the 2017 elections from Jaito Assembly seat. But, he lost the elections to Baldev Singh of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) by some 10,000 votes. Baldev Singh polled 45,344 votes and Mohammad Sadique bagged 35,351 votes.
In Qadia, hub of Ahmadiyas, Fatehjang Singh Bajwa of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won the elections. No muslim candidate was in fray in this constituency.
Congress has fielded 02 Muslim candidates in 2017 Punjab Assembly elections, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Akali Dali has given party ticket to 01 Muslim each. The BJP has not fielded any Muslim in the 2017 state elections
Overall, the Congress has won 77 of the total 117 seats of the Punjab Assembly. AAP is a distant second with 20 seats.
Akali Dal and BJP, ruling the state since last ten years, ended with 15 and 03 seats respectively. Lok Insaaf Party won 02 seats.
source: http://www.ummid.com / Ummid.com / Home> Politics / by ummid.com & Agencies / March 13th, 2017
Safia Akhtar was a brilliant writer, poet, author, teacher, critic, and connoisseur of Urdu literature, who remains underrated.
If you know who Safia Akhtar is you would probably know her as Javed and Salman Akhtar’s mother, Jan Nisar Akhtar’s wife, or Asrar-ul-Haq, better known as Majaz Lakhnawi’s sister but Safia was quite the personality herself. She was a brilliant writer, poet, author, teacher, critic, and connoisseur of Urdu literature.
The best of Safia Akhtar’s work includes the letters that she wrote to her husband while they were apart. Her letters which were written over a period of nine years were published after her death by her husband as “Hurf-e-Ashna” and “Zer-e-lab” translating to “familiar words” and “below the lips” respectively. Safia Akhtar also wrote, “Andaz-e-Nazar” (The way to look at it) which is a collection of short essays.
Safia’s sister Hamida Salim was also a talented writer having authored many books like “Hum Saath the”(We were together) which gives an account of the lives of the siblings. Javed Akhtar, her son who lost Safia only when he was eight years old calls his mother a “nayaab aurat” during her time.
She set foot into education and pursued it at a time when women were rarely given the choice or opportunity to do so. Safia Akhtar chose her life partner, she worked and financially supported her family as well as her husband who was in another state, looking for work. To top it all off, she also took care of her two sons.
Safia Siraj-ul-Haq was born in Rudauli, Uttar Pradesh. Safia was an educated Muslim woman, one of the first of her time, in the 1940s. As Javed Akhtar recalls, his Nana (maternal grandfather) mentioned to him that someone once visiting couldn’t locate their house and asked for directions to the house of the girl who graduated and was easily guided to Safia Akhtar’s place.
Safia’s primary education took place at home where her father, Chowdhary Seraj-ul-Haq, taught her English, Urdu, and Farsi. Her brother, Majaz, assisted her with mathematics and she was tutored in the Quran by a female teacher. Owing to her father’s transfer, who was a law graduate, a door opened for Safia Akhtar and her siblings for further education. She was admitted to Karamat Hussain Muslim Girls college in the fourth grade. However, soon after, her father was transferred again from Agra, where Safia was studying living at a hostel, to Aligarh.
Safia Akhtar then started studying at Abdullah College and excelled in her academics. After completing high school, she had to wait a year for the B.A. classes to start in the girls’ college. Safia stayed in a hostel during her B.A. and after completing it, worked as a supervisor of a training program with her teachers as they were amazed by Safia’s caliber. After completing her undergraduate course, she studied further and got a Master’s degree in education from Aligarh Muslim University.
Safia grew up imbibing a progressive ideology. She set foot into education and pursued it at a time when women were rarely given the choice or opportunity to do so. Safia Akhtar chose her life partner, she worked and financially supported her family as well as her husband who was in another state, looking for work. To top it all off, she also took care of her two sons. Safia’s brother and husband were also part of the progressive writers’ movement at the time.
pix: lucknowobserver.com
Safia and Jan Nisar Akhtar
Jan Nisar Akhtar, the famous poet and Bollywood lyricist was a friend of Safia Akhtar’s brother Majaz and also the cousin of Salma, her roommate while she was staying in the hostel in Aligarh. Salma recounts Jan Nisar coming to the girls’ college randomly to meet Safia and introducing himself as a friend of her brother’s. Safia fell in love at first sight. However, the love seemed to be one-sided as Jan Nisar did not get in touch with her for quite a while and this disheartened Safia.
After some time passed, Jan Nisar wrote to Safia about his work, interests and disinterests, and himself. Soon after, Safia’s family received a marriage proposal from Jan Nisar’s side. As the culture still prevails, the girl’s family did a background check on Jan Nisar and his family. Salma, his cousin, testified for Jan Nisar’s family (even though she wasn’t too well informed about them) that they had a legacy of poets; his father Muztar Khairabadi was a well-known shayar of the time.
The letters give a glimpse of Safia’s immense love and optimism toward Jan Nisar. They also give an insight into episodes of her life events including her job, their two children Javed and Salman, her life at home, and towards the end, her suffering. These letters stand proof of what a literary genius Safia Akhtar was
Jan Nisar himself was well accomplished and was an Urdu literature lecturer in Gwalior. With no time wasted, Safia Akhtar’s parents sent their acceptance as they did not find any flaws as such in Jan Nisar. But to their disappointment, the Akhtars did not respond for a considerable amount of time.
This silence motivated Safia to take a rather valiant step. She poured her heart out to Jan Nisar in a letter and also enquired about the holdback from their side. Jan Nisar reverted with a confession about his feeling for another woman, his older, widowed relative who helped him during a rough patch after his first relationship came to an end. Safia appreciated Jan Nisar’s honesty. The proposal was re-established and the nikkah followed soon after, although there were some odd happenings during the time.
source: youtube.com / Letters Of Love & Loss | Jaan Nisar Akhtar Aur Safia Ke Khat | Rekhta Studio
In 1949, Jan Nisar switched cities from Bhopal to Bombay in the pursuit of becoming a lyricist in Bollywood. Safia Akhtar chose to stay back and continue with her teaching post at Hamidiya College, thus, supporting her husband money-wise and also rearing their two children. The distance between the two encouraged Safia to write letters to him.
She wrote to him consistently, multiple times a week in some instances. The letters give a glimpse of Safia’s immense love and optimism toward Jan Nisar. They also give an insight into episodes of her life events including her job, their two children Javed and Salman, her life at home, and towards the end, her suffering. These letters stand proof of what a literary genius Safia Akhtar was. Safiya suffered from an unconfirmed terminal illness (it was either blood cancer or skin cancer, not conclusive). Unfortunately, fate had other plans and Safia passed away prematurely in 1953 when she just was in her late 30s.
Without a doubt, Safia’s letters were and to this day are, a gem in Urdu literature. She expresses her feelings so very aesthetically and makes the most mundane of her daily tasks seem something literary and intriguing. About her letters being published, there seems to be a difference of opinion.
On one hand, there is the stance that the letters were something intimate, personal, and not meant to be out for the public. Salma, her roommate, calls it a “Dastan-e-Gham”, the saga of sorrows that she shared with her husband and would not want to be disclosed. While others appreciate the sheer brilliance of her words and feel lucky to have access to them.
source: http://www.feminisminindia.com / Feminism In India (FII) / Home> Culture> Books / by Tuba Chauhan / August 04th, 2022
The Social Work and Outreach Activities Club of Women’s College, Aligarh Muslim University held an inaugural talk and launched its membership programme.
Highlighting the objectives of the club, Prof. Shadab Bano drew the critical distinction between charity and social work, and stressed that receiving an education gives us a responsibility to share its benefits with others. She urged the students to view social work as a civic duty.
Prof. Nazura Usmani emphasized the importance of the disability support committee and discussed strategies to foster inclusivity and increase the representation of differently-abled students on campus. She stressed the need for disability sensitization among the student body to build a more understanding and accessible environment for everyone.
Dr. Eisha Rahman announced the club’s committees and introduced the coordinators; Prof. Nazura Usmani and Prof. Shadab Bano as Main Coordinators; Dr. Arshi Shoaib and Dr. Shagufta Munir for Remedial Classes for Abdullah School students; Dr. Shagufta Niyaz and Dr. Mahjabeen for Disability Support; Dr. Arshia Shafqat, Dr. Fozia Waheed, and Dr. Eisha Rahman for Tuitions for Non-Teaching Staff’s children; Dr. Heena Parveen and Dr. Eisha Rahman for Adult Education for Fourth Grade Employees; and Dr. Fozia Waheed, Dr. Mohd. Firoz Ahamed, Dr. Mahjabeen and Dr. Masudullah Khan for the Locality Cleanliness Drive.
Prof. Shadab Bano and Dr. Eisha Rahman addressed the queries of the participants, providing clarity on the club’s goals and activities. About 65 students registered themselves as the members of the club.
Dr. Mohd Firoz Ahamed concluded the event, encouraging students to join the club for bringing meaningful changes and making a positive impact on their community.
source: http://www.indiaeducationdiary.in / India Education Diary / Home> National News / by India Education Diary / November 07th, 2024
It was a cold day in February 2016. A woman from a small town of Uttar Pradesh received her Ph.D. at the 63rd Annual Convocation of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), Aligarh. She was the first from her clan to have taken admission to AMU in 2003. Her parents never attended college; her four brothers took up family businesses at a younger age. The woman in the discussion is me. I am Mahino Fatima, a Muslim girl from a backward caste who became a scientist against all odds.
pix: heritagetimes.in / Dr. Mahino Fatima
Friends, relatives, and peers celebrated my becoming a scientist as a consequence of my hard work and perseverance. In my heart of hearts, I knew this day has not come only because of me; I was grateful for the privilege of education that I was born with.
Most importantly, I should not forget Fatima Sheikh. If not for her, I would never have become a scientist. Lakhs of women who are successful because of education would have remained illiterate but for Fatima Sheikh’s pioneering work.
How can I, a woman, forget that my foremothers were not allowed to learn how to write? How can I, a backward caste woman, forget that my forefathers were not allowed to receive an education? Today, when we look at our curriculum, we find that women scientists, economists, philosophers, and intellectuals are negligible in comparison to men. Famous philosopher, Jaques Derrida, once remarked that no woman was a philosopher. His observation was true, but he did not delve into the reason. How can a woman become a philosopher when men for centuries controlled the development of her intellectual capacities in the name of culture?
In our society, men would not let women learn the art of writing for the fear that if literate these women would communicate to ‘lovers’ through letters. Bibi Ashraf, a late 19th-century educationist, recalled how she was not allowed to learn reading and writing like male members of her family. She secretly learned to write. The secret came out when during the revolt of 1857; she had to write a letter to her father and uncle. Instead of receiving accolades, she was abhorred by men in her family. Her uncle was furious and made her take an oath that she would never write a letter to a man. Similar was the story of Rassundari Devi, who secretly learned writing by stealing books from her son. How do we expect women scientists in such a society? Still, a large section of our society would not let women study more than what is needed in the ‘marriage market’.
In this society, Fatima Sheikh, along with Savitribai Phule, started a school for girls in 1848. Yes, 1848. 26 years before Sheikh Abdullah, who later founded a women’s college at Aligarh, and 32 years before Begum Rukaiya Sakhawat, doyen of women education, were born, Fatima had started a girls’ school and taught herself. Today, that small classroom of 9 girls has prepared lakhs of educated women.
Today women are asking for gender parity in opportunities and pay scales. Thanks to Fatima, women today are educated to understand their worth and assert their rights.
Fatima was a pioneer; she was followed by Begum Rukaiya, Begum Wahid, Muhammadi Begum. A revolution starts with an idea. Fatima’s was the idea that put women of India in general and Muslim women in particular, on the march to empowerment through education.
Today, I thank Fatima for making me a scientist. Nobody knows how many bright women before 1848 had been deprived of education and were not allowed to dream of becoming a scientist. But, we surely know that after 1848, women have slowly entered different fields through education and are today competing with men to have their rightful place in the books, laboratories, and society.
(Author is a neurobiologist with her major research on depression and Alzheimer’s)
source: http://www.awazthevoice.in / Awaz, The Voice / Home> Stories / by Mahino Fatima / Saquib Salim / January 09th, 2022
Women’s education in nineteenth-century India was no easy task. In the case of Muslim women, the task was even more difficult due to their triply marginal identity: as colonial subjects, as women, and as Muslims. Not only did the custom of purdah added to their seclusion from the social and cultural changes, their men hated everything about the western cultural influence (being displaced as rulers by the British). As a result, the middle class (the initiators of reform) was to develop late among the Indian Muslims than their Hindu counterparts. Nevertheless, by the late nineteenth century, a middle-class among the Indian Muslims was fledging. For this, no institution of the nineteenth-century can be given more commendation than Aligarh Muslim University.
Formed in 1920, the Aligarh Muslim University just completed its hundred years as a modern residential university. There has been a perception that the Aligarh Movement, for whatever reasons, neglected the issue of modern education to Muslim women. But there is more to this argument, some things to be explored, some to be re-interpreted.
This article, therefore, attempts to trace the genesis and trajectory of women’s educational reform in Aligarh through the profile of a woman reformer – Waheed Jahan (1886-1939), wife of Shaikh Abdullah (1874-1965), and the co-founder of Aligarh’s first girls’ school. Waheed Jahan was a pioneer of Muslim women’s education at Aligarh in the early twentieth century. Her role in ending the relative isolation of Indian Muslim women, while at the same time preserving the Muslim identity of the community, is worthwhile to recall. Her biography was published in Urdu by her husband in 1954. [1]
The educational reforms among Indian women were mostly started by men. Such men started with writings advocating women’s education. In this regard, among Muslims, Nazir Ahmad (1833-1912) published his novel, Mirat-ul-Arus, in 1869; Altaf Hussain Hali (1837-1914) published Majlis-un-Nissa, in 1874. Soon, magazines and journals followed, like the Tahzib un-Niswan by Sayyid Mumtaz Ali (1860-1935), the Khatoon by Shaikh Abdullah and Waheed Jahan, and the Ismat by Rashid-ul- Khairi (1868-1936). Gail Minault regards these as ’The Big Three.’ [2] Apart from literary activism, others tried more practical measures, like opening schools for Muslim girls.
As the movement intensified, so did the opposition against it. In such an atmosphere, even the talk of women’s education by a woman herself was quite a chivalry.
Yet, unexpectedly, there were women who defied the odds and broke the ground. Rashid-un-Nissa of Patna, became the first Muslim woman to write an Urdu novel, Islah-un-Nissa in 1881 (published in 1894), when writing was a distant dream for Muslim women. Rokeya Sakhawat Husain (1880-1932), a widow herself, pioneered Muslim women’s education in Bengal. Muhammadi Begam (1878-1908) edited one of the leading ladies’ home journals, Tahzib-un-Niswan. One such icon of women’s education at Aligarh was Waheed Jahan.
Waheed was born in 1874 in a landholding family in Delhi. Her father Mirza Ibrahim Beg was of Mughal ancestry, serving as a minor municipal official in Delhi. Her only brother, Bashir Mirza went to the Mohammadan Anglo-Oriental College (MAO Colege), Aligarh, where he befriended Shaikh Abdulla (a Kashmiri convert to Islam, named Thakur Das before conversion).
As was the custom, Waheed received no formal schooling. She learnt Urdu and Persian from her father and arithmetic and elementary English from a visiting English tutoress.
Ismat Chughtai, in her autobiography, Kagazi hai Pairahan, records, how Waheed Jahan, before her marriage, had dreamt of establishing a school for the girls. She would gather the servants’ children and teach them, and soon the rudimentary school became popular among her neighbours. It is noteworthy that, at a time when others (mostly men) were still imagining a school for girls (that too only in their writings), Waheed, in her own limited capacity, was practically making a difference.
In 1902, Waheed married Shaikh Abdullah – a lawyer at Aligarh, and an ardent supporter of women’s education since his school days. Following the marriage to a woman with some education, he began to consider concrete ways to promote Muslim women’s education. The Mohammadan Education Conference (MEC, founded at Aligarh by Sir Syed Ahmad in 1886) had established a Women’s Education Section (WES) in 1896 to start a Normal School for girls and to train female (zenana) teachers. In 1902, Shaikh became the secretary of WES, which by then had merely achieved anything beyond discussions and debates around women’s education.
Luckily, Waheed’s marriage to a reformist like Abdullah helped her materialize her dream. To champion women’s education, they started an Urdu monthly, the Khatoon, in 1904 with Waheed Jahan as editor. Begum Sultan Jahan (1858-1930) of Bhopal, Binnat Nazir-al-Baqir, Suharwardiya Begum, and Binnat Nasiruddin Haider were some important female contributors to the journal.
The paucity of funds made it impossible to start a Normal School. Waheed Jahan advised her husband to start a primary school for the elite (Sharif) girls. In 1904, the Mohammadan Educational Conference passed a resolution to start a girls’ school in Aligarh. Waheed proved to be an efficient manager and fund-raiser for the cause.
Her capacities as a fund-raiser and organizer were displayed in 1905, when she organized a meeting of Muslim women in Aligarh, with participants from far corners of Lahore and Bombay. Judging from the context of the time when purdah among Muslims was so harsh, even the idea of organizing such an event was quite revolutionary.
Aware of women education in Turkey and Egypt and its benefits to society, she tried to convince other women; she said:
When women meet among themselves, there will be more solidarity. . . Now there is a division between educated and uneducated women. Uneducated women, who do not go out, think that respectability is confined to the four walls of their houses. They think that people who live beyond those walls are not respectable and not worthy of meeting. But God has ordained education for both men and women, so that such useless ideas can be dispensed with. . . [3]
The meeting was a success, the exhibition of women’s craft secured good funds; finally, the women passed a resolution favouring a girls’ school in Aligarh. In October 1906, Aligarh Zenana Madrasa (girls’ school) opened its doors, and seventeen students were enrolled. Urdu, arithmetic, needlework, and the Quran formed the curriculum. Leaving her own children in servants’ care, Waheed took the responsibility of supervising the school. Within six months, the number of students increased to fifty-six. Waheed’s efforts secured the school a cumulative grant of Rs. 15,000 and a monthly grant of Rs. 250. By 1909, the school taught 100 students and shifted to a larger building.
The opposition to girls’ school took new forms. One amusing story is recorded in Shaikh Abdullah’s Urdu memoir (1969), Mushahedaat o Taaassuraat. [4] Maintaining purdah, the girls were carried in daulis (curtained carriages) to school, and some street urchins started harassing the school going girls by lifting the curtains of their daulis. The mischief only stopped when Shaikh gave one of the miscreants a good thrashing. In another incident, Shaikh confronted a tehsildar who had accused the school of making the girls insolent.
When the Abdullahs proposed a girls’ boarding school, it invited opposition from elite corners. The European principal of MAO College, W.A.J Archbold; Ziauddun Ahmad (1873-1947); and Viqar-ul-Mulk (1841-1917) opposed vehemently.
The couple, however, succeeded in 1914, witnessing the transformation of the school into a boarding school. The same year saw the culmination of Muslim women’s activism by the foundation of Anjuman-i-Khavatin-i-Islam (AKI) at the same venue. Begum Sultan Jahan (1858-1930) of Bhopal graced the foundational ceremony of the boarding school, felicitating Waheed; she urged other women to follow her example. Fyzee sisters, Abru Begum, Begum Shafi, and Begum Shah Nawaz were the other dignitaries.
The Begum was already active in various social and educational reform projects. She served as the first chancellor of AMU from 1920 until her death in 1930. Having a woman as the first chancellor was indeed a historic feat.
Only nine girls became the residents, most of them from Waheed’s own family. By the end of the year, the enrollment rose up to twenty-five. This was the result of what the historian Gail Minault calls as Abdullahs’ portrayal of girls’ school as an extension of girls’ families and also of their own. To make the school successful, Waheed used to invite the parents of girls to Aligarh, for a few days stay in the hostel, to convince them that the conditions there were safe enough to let their daughters stay, records Sheikh Abdullah, in his Mushahedaat o Taaassuraat. She supervised everything – housekeeping, laundry, shopping, and even tasted each dish cooked for the girls.
It could be said that Waheed Jahan acted as a foster mother to these girls, counselling, nursing, and treating them as a part of her own extended family. They called each other as Apa (sister), Shaikh Abdullah as Papa Mian, and Waheed Jahan as Ala Bi. This created a sense of sisterhood among the girls.
This familial system of ethos still remains unique to the Aligarh Women’s College.
The boarding school project contained other complex problems, such as maintaining proper purdah. Both Shaikh and Waheed agreed that the purdah practiced in the Sharif society was more restrictive than purdah sanctioned by the Shari’a (Islamic Law). But to secure social acceptance for their school, they chose to go with strict purdah, building fortress-like walls to fend off the male gaze, students’ mails were scrutinized, and only close relatives were allowed inside.
This accommodation of purdah within the gamut of their reformist agenda, to gain social acceptance, was indeed very astute of the Abdullahs. Thus, Waheed Jahan succeeded in preserving both the elite and the “Muslim” identity of herself and her community while simultaneously breaking the relative isolation of Indian Muslim women. The girls’ school became an intermediate college in 1925 and started degree classes in 1937 (with 250 students). Waheed passed away in 1939, only after seeing her school becoming a degree college.
The relation between education and social change is complex, varying from culture to culture and among different classes in the same culture.
True, that Aligarh movement was late to include women’s education in its fold. Even the school founded by the Abdullahs did not fulfil all its expectations – their choosing an exclusively elite (Sharif) clientele limited the impact of their reforms.
But their efforts indeed bore fruits; the educational reforms for Muslim women at Aligarh contributed to many social developments. After the formation of AKI in 1914, the number of meetings and associations (for women-only) increased rapidly in the 1930’s. The growth in the number of educated women created a market for new publications for and by women.
The Aligarh Women’s College produced many women of substance, who made sure to shine above and beyond purdah, some figuratively and others literally. These ladies excelled in various fields, from teaching to medicine to writing.
Rashid Jahan, Waheed Jahan’s daughter, became a successful physician, a radical writer, and a staunch communist. Her short stories in Angare (1932) became the opening salvo of the Urdu Progressive Writers Movement (1936). Rakhshanda Jalil, in her biographical work on Rashid, A Rebel and her Cause: The Life and Work of Rashid Jahan, writes that Angare was a “document of disquiet”; a self-conscious attempt “to shock people out of their inertia, to show how hypocrisy and sexual oppression had so crept in everyday life”. Rashid became an inspiration for a generation of women writers such as Ismat Chughtai, Attia Hosain, Sadia Begum Sohravi, and Razia Sajjad Zaheer, among others.
Like all other reform movements of that time period, the Aligarh movement had its limitations too. For a start, it did prioritize men’s education over women’s, for various reasons (a story that needs to be told elsewhere), but by the early twentieth century, things were changing. The Aligarh movement not only took up the cause of women’s education actively, but it also let women (Like Wahid Jahan) be a part of the process.
Notes
[1] Shaikh Abdullah, Savanih-i- Umri-i- Abdullah Begum, Aligarh, 1954
[2] Gail Minault, Gender, Language, and Learning: Essays in Indo-Muslim Cultural History, Permanent Black Publications, Ranikhet, 2009, p. 87
(Ishrat Mushtaq is PhD Candidate, Centre of Advanced Study in History, Aligarh Muslim University and Sajad Hassan Khan is PhD. Candidate, Centre of Advanced Study in History, Aligarh Muslim University. Article courtesy: Mainstream Weekly.)
Janata Weekly does not necessarily adhere to all of the views conveyed in articles republished by it. Our goal is to share a variety of democratic socialist perspectives that we think our readers will find interesting or useful. —Eds.
source: http://www.janataweekly.org / Janata Weekly / Home / by Ishrat Mushtaq and Saad Hassan Khan / January 24th, 2021
By Nasreen Ahmed / First Edition Pub. October 2012, x+190 pages, 8.5 x 5.5 in. / ISBNs: 978-81-88789-82-5
This is a broad study of the efforts at modern education for Muslim women, especially with reference to the Aligarh Movement and the initiatives inspired by it in other parts of UP, namely Lucknow, Allahabad, Rampur and Agra. The role of Muslim leaders, both male and female, the nature of the problems they encountered and the manner in which they countered them is the major thrust of this study. In the process we are introduced to the major debates on women and education during the course of late nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century.
The author breaks many stereotypes as we learn that it was the more traditional among the Muslim leadership, rather than the ‘modernisers’, who pioneered women’s education and that Muslim women themselves played a major role in nurturing the first institutions under their personal care.
Based on an extensive range of primary sources and contemporary writings in English, Urdu, Hindi and Persian, this is a definitive work in many ways, gives food for thought on developments other than its main theme and will be useful to those concerned with women’s studies, social reform, education and modernity in colonial India, particularly with reference to Muslims.
CONTENTS
Muslim Women’s Education in the Nineteenth Century: A Study of the Traditionalist Attitudes
Efforts for the Education of Muslim Women, 1857-1885
Aligarh Movement and Muslim Women’s Education, 1875-1902
Female Education Section: Early Discussions, 1896-1904
A School for Muslim Girls at Aligarh
From Female Normal School to Muhammadan Girls’ School, 1906-1910
A Degree College Managed by the University
Establishment of Schools by Other Indigenous Efforts: Lucknow, Allahabad, Rampur and Agra.
Cover photo: Papa Mian (Sheikh Abdullah, 1864-1965) and Waheed Jahan Begum (1884-1939), founders of the first school for Muslim girls in Aligarh. Back cover: Carriage used to bring girls to school, accompanied by a female escort. (1923)
Nasreen Ahmed
Nasreen Ahmed (1954-2009) studied at the Aligarh Muslim University and later taught at the Karamat Husain College, Lucknow.
She is a pioneer among historians on concerns of Muslim women’s education, as her early essays on the theme published in the late 1970s show. Thereafter she presented her work at various national conferences and seminars. Her studies are rich in sociological data: she records a great deal that feminist scholars writing on Muslim women today have missed. She is author of many research articles published in the Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, a journal of frontier scholarship in history.
source: http://www.threeessays.com / Three Essays Collective
In a time when women were relegated to the home and the hearth, and their dreams resigned to those of little other than a committed marriage and devout motherhood, Waheed Jahan Begum proved that women could want more for themselves.
Throughout India’s modern history in the struggle for women’s rights, many Indian reformers have gravitated towards upholding the crusade for women’s education as their foremost priority. For the everyday individual, the topic of women’s education tends to bring to mind a few notable Indian reformers who fought for women’s rights to pursue an education, albeit the large majority of these names are of men.
Throughout India’s modern history in the struggle for women’s rights, many Indian reformers have gravitated towards upholding the crusade for women’s education as their foremost priority. For the everyday individual, the topic of women’s education tends to bring to mind a few notable Indian reformers who fought for women’s rights to pursue an education, albeit the large majority of these names are of men.
Jyotirao Phule’s wife, Savitribai, was responsible for opening the first school for girls in the Indian subcontinent, yet her contributions and accomplishments are often accredited to their union than to her alone, and she is often overlooked for her importance to the movement while her husband is remembered by history as one of the leading reformers for it.
Similarly, in the union between Sheikh Abdullah and Waheed Jahan Begum, we see an identical dichotomy emerge as the husband rises to prominence for his contributions to women’s rights movements, while the wife is remembered only as his counterpart, or inspiration.
Source: Book Women Education by Dr Nasreen Ahmad
Today we understand the importance of education in the lives of modern women, as a means to achieve financial independence in a patriarchal set-up that favours women as being financially dependent on their fathers, and later, their husbands. But despite the well-established variety of schools and colleges for women we have in India today, it was not always as such and the story of the path to women’s education would be incomplete without the role played by Waheed Jahan Begum.
An early educator
Waheed Jahan Begum was the youngest daughter born to Mirza Mohammad Ibrahim Beg, a minor municipal official, in a landholding family from Delhi in 1874. Though she did not have the means to pursue formal schooling, her father personally ensured she would be fluent in Urdu and Persian, while also hiring English tutors to provide her with an understanding of arithmetic and elementary English.
She subtly began to implement her lifelong dream to start a school for girls in her surroundings growing up, by gathering up the houseworkers’ children and teaching them. Through this method, she succeeded at establishing one of the first concerted efforts at providing girls with an education in a group setting, akin to a school. She attempted to make education accessible to girls within her locality, regardless of their background, at a time when few others were able to say the same.
In one simple gesture, she managed to lay down the foundations upon which she built her career from the ground up.
Source: Aligarh Muslim University
But as a single Muslim woman in the Indian subcontinent, it would have been nearly impossible to single-handedly bring about concrete change.
Sheikh Abdullah, however, was a Kashmiri lawyer who was a prominent leader in the Aligarh Movement, which encouraged the Muslim youth to pursue a modern English education. Though many in the movement rejected Muslim women’s right to an education as well, Sheikh Abdullah represented one of the few men in the movement who was outspoken regarding the need to educate girls and women. This made him a suitable candidate for Waheed Jahan Begum to partner with in her pursuit of fighting the cause for women’s education. They also later had five daughters and a son together.
Creating a class of well educated muslim women
On marrying Sheikh Abdullah, Waheed Jahan Begum encouraged him in his quest to appeal to the issue of women’s education to the masses. Together, the couple concluded that female teachers needed to be trained to impart education to young girls.
While Sheikh Abdullah took up the matter of women’s education in front of the Muslim Education Conference and was subsequently elected secretary of the Female Education Section, Waheed Jahan Begum became editor of an Urdu monthly, Khatoon, that the couple began publishing in 1904 to further the cause of women’s education. Additionally, they opened a primary school for the elite populace of Muslim girls.
Waheed Jahan Begum also hosted meetings among educated Muslim women from across the country to champion the advantages and benefits of women’s education in the country, consequently securing funding for establishing a girls’ school.
Sheikh Abdullah with his daughters, son-in-law and grandchildren
However, Waheed Jahan Begum’s secular approach to women’s education growing up proved to be difficult to maintain going forward into her professional life as her lifelong goal to establish a school for girls proved to be a challenge amongst those in charge.
As when the couple then moved on to start a primary school for girls on various disciplines relevant to the education of Muslim women, including Urdu, the Quran, arithmetic, and needlework, it was restricted to the daughters of elite families who could afford to educate their girls. Additionally, though the school opened with only seven students in 1906, it grew over the years to accommodate around a hundred students in 1909.
This, however, did not come without its societal dangers, as the girls enrolled in the school faced harassment from the local boys and men in the process of travelling from their homes to the school in curtained carriages. This led to their families pulling them out of school once they reached puberty.
To counteract the threats posed to the girls in their travels, the couple then proceeded with, and succeeded at, pushing for the opening of a boarding school for girls. Leaving her children to be overseen by houseworkers’, Waheed Jahan Begum committed herself to establish the boarding school within the paradigm of a family structure, taking care of each of the girls enrolled in the boarding school as though they were her daughter.
From personally overseeing each aspect of the daily lives of her pupils regarding housekeeping, laundry, and shopping, she would even go as far as inviting the families of the girls to stay in the hostels for a few days to assure them of the safety of the boarding school and to secure their trust.
In addition to such measures, strict purdah was enforced in the form of walls built around the facility to garner social acceptance from the Muslim elite, though both husband and wife agreed on the restrictive nature of purdah. Their battle for women’s education was riddled with compromises and concessions made which reveal the complexities of the arena of women’s education within the given historical context, as families would assign greater value to their daughters’ “honour” than their education as the former kept them marriageable. The latter held little weightage to their prospects in the market.
A legacy to look upto
By the time Waheed Jahan Begum passed away in 1939, the boarding school had developed into a women’s college which offered several degree courses.
Waheed Jahan Begum turned her dreams into reality, by handing down the gift of education to a new generation of Muslim women, with the women’s college she opened with her husband now boasting a strength of around 40,000 students and counting. Students travel from across the world to study at the college she opened back in the days when even moderately educated women were few and far between.
Source: Aligarh Muslim University
To have achieved such a lasting change in the sphere of women’s education is no small feat, and while it is bleak to confront how little ability women have to bring forth a change within their material reality without the support of the progressive men in their lives, such as their husbands or fathers, it would altogether be impossible to bring to fruition without the hard work of inspiring women such as Waheed Jahan Begum.
She paved the way for the first steps to be taken in the emancipation of Muslim women in the Indian subcontinent, she believed in the power of education as a stepping stone to liberation from traditionalism which would have women confined to the knowledge of the four walls of their husband’s home and little of the vast world that lay beyond.
As a woman who sacrificed so much of her freedom to dedicate her life to striving for the progress of future generations of Muslim women, she is deserving of recognition beyond her role as a supportive and ingenious partner to Sheikh Abdullah as he set the wheels in motion for women’s education within Muslim society at large.
In a time when women were relegated to the home and the hearth, and their dreams resigned to those of little other than a committed marriage and devout motherhood, Waheed Jahan Begum proved that women could want more for themselves, and for women at large, by leaving their mark on history in their words and actions, to inspire and leave room for future generations of women to add on to their legacy and change the world we live in, bit by bit.
source: http://www.feminisminindia.com / Feminism in India – FII / Home / by Tanya Roy / January 13th, 2023
Unlike a lot of well-known female social reformers of her time, Begum Khedive Jung spent most of her life in the city of Hyderabad where she was born.
Tayeba Begum Khedive Jung (initially Tayeba Begum Bilgrami) was born to Abbasi Begum Bilgrami and Imad-ul-Mulk Syed Hussain in 1873. Unlike a lot of well-known female social reformers of her time, Begum Khedive Jung spent most of her life in the city of Hyderabad where she was born. While this did impact the overall reach of her writings and social work, she still managed to bring about a significant social impact in the various cities where she spent her life.
While growing up in Hyderabad, Begum Khedive Jung attended school with Sarojini Naidu who eventually went on to become a popular political activist. After her schooling, she completed her bachelor’s degree from the University of Madras in 1894 and became the first-ever Muslim woman graduate. However, she got married to Dr Mirza Karim Khan (Khedive Jung Bahadur) soon after and had to give up her education as a result of the same.
Nonetheless, even after her marriage, Begum’s proficiency in English and Urdu languages and her continued efforts to perfect her Arabic and Persian ensured her intellectual growth. Her academic knowledge further enabled her to engage in numerous debates and discussions with men of great calibre during her time. This led her to form close bonds of friendship with Sir Ali Imam, the Prime Minister of Hyderabad state.
Source: Geni
Jung’s role in advocating women’s education
Begum Khedive Jung strongly advocated for the education of all women throughout her lifetime. She set up eight schools for girls in Hyderabad, but only two of them remain functional in today’s time. As a social activist, she chaired the annual women’s conference within the Brahmo Samaj. She also took charge of Anjuman-e-Khawatin-e-Islam which was started by Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain to emancipate women by helping them acquire knowledge and skills.
In 1907, Begum Khedive Jung, along with women like Sarojini Naidu and Lady Amina Hydari, played a significant role in persuading the Nizam of Hyderabad to allow them to set up the Mahboobia Girls School in Hyderabad.
Her years of social activism
Begum Khedive Jung and Lady Hydari carried out numerous social works together. In addition to their involvement in the establishment of Mahboobia Girls School, the two had also started the Lady Hydari Club. Even though the club was primarily known as a space for the elite women of Hyderabad, the less-known fact about it remained that it managed a school meant for the poor alongside running a library for them.
Source: Geni
During the Great Musi Flood in 1908, Begum Khedive Jung and Lady Hydari took up relief work to support those who had been affected. The two women, despite being pregnant during the floods, spent a significant amount of their time at the banks of the Musi river to support those in need.
A long legacy left behind
Begum wrote and published folklore with Indian Magazine, London. During the year 1905, she finished writing a novel titled Anwari Begum which was initially published in 1909. However, the official publication of her writing took place after her death in 1922. The novel focused on the lives of women in the households of Hyderabad and was aimed at supporting the social reforms that Begum Khedive Jung wanted to bring about. It also tried to explore the intersections between the themes of elitism and seclusion within Hyderabad’s aristocracy. Additionally, Begum is also known to have worked on Indian folk songs during her lifetime.
Source: Geni
Multiple women in Hyderabad derived strength from Begum’s work and carried her vision to educate Muslim women forward. One such female reformer was Sughra Humayun Mirza who established the Safdaria School in Hyderabad.
Even a century after Begum Khedive Jung’s death, she continues to be remembered by the people of Hyderabad for the relief work she carried out during the Musi floods and the educational institutions she founded for young girls.
source: http://www.feminisminindia.com / Feminism in India – FII / Home / by Upasana Dandona / January 18th, 2023
Begum Qudsia Aizaz Rasul was one of the 28 Muslim League members to join the Constituent Assembly of undivided India, and she was the only Muslim woman to be a part of the assembly.
Begum Qudsia Aizaz Rasul was born to the royal family of Malerkotla (situated in erstwhile united Punjab) on 4th April, 1908. Her father was Nawab Zulfiqar Ali Khan. Qudsia had a progressive upbringing and was encouraged from a very early age to lead a modern life, as opposed to several stringent restrictions imposed upon other contemporary Muslim women, such as that of the purdah.
She got married at quite an early age to Nawaab Aizaz Rasul from the erstwhile province of Awadh. Her husband held the position of a taluqdar, or a landowner. Qudsia had political exposure both before and after marriage, and her formal political participation took place after she got married.
Qudsia, along with her husband, joined the Muslim League in mid-1930s, soon after the passing of theGovernment of India Act in 1935. This was also her official entry into electoral politics, as she contested in the elections of 1937 from the U.P. legislative assembly, where she successfully held her seat till 1952. Aizaz was one of the very few female candidates to have contested and won from a non-reserved constituency during the pre-independent times.
“
She was the first Indian woman to achieve such feats, and this was truly commendable and noteworthy at a time when most formal political positions were almost implicitly reserved for men.
“
As an MLA, she also held several important posts, such as the Leader of Opposition (1950 to 1952) and the Deputy President of the Council (1937 to 1940). She was the first Indian woman to achieve such feats, and this was truly commendable and noteworthy at a time when most formal political positions were almost implicitly reserved for men. Moreover, to rise to prominence at a politically significant province such as the U.P. indeed made Qudsia Aizaz Rasul a trailblazer.
She is well known for her progressive, anti-feudal stances, such as the abolition of the zamindari system. Qudsia was a strong advocate for the abolition of communal electorates as well, as she believed it divided the society more than it united – which was counterproductive for the Indian electoral candidates at a time when there was an urgent need of a united Indian front to oppose the colonial rulers. She went on to create a strong and convincing case for the abolition of electoral reservations for religious minorities during her tenure as a member of the Constituent Assembly.
Qudsia was one of the 28 Muslim League members to join the Constituent Assembly of undivided India, and she was the only Muslim woman to be a part of the assembly. Her contributions in the assembly debates remain monumental till date and have been recorded in many official sources.
“
Her contributions in the assembly debates remain monumental till date, and have been recorded in many official sources.
“
After the dissolution of the League, she joined the Indian National Congress, and served as a member of the Rajya Sabha from 1952 to 1958. Later, she became a member of the legislative assembly of Uttar Pradesh from 1969 to 1989.
Other Achievements
Begum Qudsia Aizaz Rasul is also well known for her autobiography, titled From Purdah to Parliament: A Muslim Woman in Indian Politics. It provides excellent insights into the intersectional aspects of organised politics as it functions in our country. Other than this, she also wrote a travelogue titled Three Weeks in Japan.
Besides her literary prowess, Qudsia had also served as the President of the Indian Women Hockey Federation for over fifteen years, and went on to become the President of the Asian Women’s Hockey Federation.
Begum Qudsia Aizaz Rasul was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2000 for immense, invaluable contributions to the field of social work.
