WAS Maulana Hali a feminist? Yes, he was. More than that, he was the first feminist in the social history of South Asian Muslims.
That is how Maulana Hali has been projected in a feministic volume Feminism Aur Ham compiled by Fatima Hasan and published by Wada Kitab Ghar, Karachi.
Forgetting feminism for a moment, I am thinking in pure literary terms. How strange that a writer or a literary trend is treated for long with indifference and even with a disdain. But one fine morning with some significant change in time, he, or it, attains a new significance and is recognized as most relevant to the spirit of the age.
During years following the catastrophe of 1857, Maulana Hali with his concern for the fate of the Muslims in India as enshrined in his Musaddas rose to new heights of prominence. The popularity of Musaddas knew no bounds. But the response to the poems speaking of his concern for the plight of women in the Indo-Muslim society remained subdued. But now with the emergence of feminism as a popular trend Hali’s poems Chup ki dad and Munajat-i-baiva have gained a new significance and more than any other poet of the past times. Hali appears in tune with the spirit of this age, which seems carried away by feminism.
In fact, seen in this context this whole period of Urdu literature as represented chiefly by Hali and Deputy Nazeer Ahmad has regained a new relevance. This period can be distinguished from those preceding it because of its recognition of woman’s place and their possible role in society. This recognition led the writers to lay emphasis on female education. Fiction writers played a leading role in this respect.
Feminists in general like to believe that each and every male has been in the past and is in present times hostile to them. Female writers have their own whims. They strongly believe that male writers have always conspired to ignore their precious contribution to literature. But now a few female writers have got rid of this obsessive feeling and have cared to probe into the past social and literary history. Sughra Mehdi from Jamia Millia Islamia has discovered in Maulana Hali a great feminist, who was not content to fight for the cause of women through writings alone. He managed to establish a girls’ school in Panipat. But Muslim parents’ prejudice against Christian teachers thwarted his project of female education. Muslim lady teachers were not available. So the school had to be closed. Sughra Mehdi has also presented a survey of Urdu novel from feministic point of view. According to this survey, the early novelists Deputy Nazir Ahmad, Sharar, Ruswa, Allama Rashidulkhairi, Fayyaz Ali all appear to be feminists in their own way. They raised their voice against purdah, against males’ second marriage and pleaded for the English education of girls. But of all these novelists, Rashidulkhairi appears to me the most devoted and the most ardent feminist, who not only wrote novels depicting the sad plight of Muslim women, but also did practical work. He instituted two female magazines, Ismat and Binat and made arrangements for female education and training in handiworks.
But how interesting that Fahmida, who is known to us as a poet, has in her feministic fervour turned into a research scholar. Her research tells us that in contradiction to the Hindu period, the Muslim period in India has the distinction of female participation in administrative affairs in different periods. In the very beginning of this period we see Sultan Altamash nominating his daughter Razia as his heir-apparent, who was later known as Sultana Razia. As for Mughals, they, for their long rule and glory, were in fact indebted to the political wisdom of Zahiruddin Babar’s nani amman.
When Babar succeeded his father in Farghana, he was just a kid. It was his maternal grandmother Ahsan Daulat Begum, who protected him and thwarted every attempt of his ambitions adversaries to dethrone him. In later years, a role of the same kind was played by Babar’s elder daughter Khanzada Begum. Her sister, Gulbadan Begum needs no introduction. She is well known to us as the author of Humayun-Nama.
Fahmida has enumerated a number of Mughal princesses, who are known to us for their intellectual pursuits or for their participation in administrative affairs. Most prominent among them was Nur Jehan. And in South, Chand Bibi distinguished herself as one who ably ruled Bijapur and put up a tough fight against Mughals in defence of her state.
So, according to this analysis, South Asian Muslims as compared to the Hindus have a better record in respect of woman’s place and role in society. But if so, how will she explain the reversal of situation we are seeing now. Fahmida stops short at the end of the nineteenth century. She seems evasive of analysing the present comparative situation of woman in the two communities.
WAS Maulana Hali a feminist? Yes, he was. More than that, he was the first feminist in the social history of South Asian Muslims.
