Rereading Begum Rokeya’s ‘Oborodh Bashini’

On Begum Rokeya Day, we do more than remember a historical figure; we associate with the spirit of a revolutionary writer. We celebrate a woman who, more than a century ago, stared down the twin fortresses of religious dogma and social norms, armed not with a sword but with a pen.

Her seminal work, "Oborodh Bashini", published in 1931, is often read as a critique of the oppressive purdah system. Yet, to confine it to that alone would miss its literary depth and strategic genius.

Oborodh Bashini is a monumental work in which the act of writing itself becomes an act of liberation.

Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain weaponised language, using testimony, satire and logic not just to critique confinement but to shatter its foundation by celebrating the voices it sought to silence, turning writing into a masterful act of defiance.

Begum Rokeya's primary weapon for this book was testimony. Oborodh Bashini is a chorus of voices, a collection of stories that bring the private sufferings of the "zenana" into the public sphere, making readers feel compassion for these women's silent pain. She fills her pages with accounts of women wasting away in airless rooms, denied sunlight, education, sometimes food and dignity. This radical choice aimed to stir empathy and show the human cost of social injustice.

One story recounts a woman so intellectually starved that she secretly read scraps of paper used to wrap groceries. This image is not just a personal tragedy; it is a devastating indictment of a culture that snatched away women's freedom of intellect. In another powerful testimony, Rokeya writes of a young girl confined within her home whose only wish was to see a circus outside her window, only to be punished and have the window sealed with bamboo blinds. The story captures the absurd cruelty of the system: a child's innocent curiosity becomes a punishable crime, and her world grows physically darker as a consequence.

By documenting such claustrophobia, intellectual deprivation and casual cruelty, Begum Rokeya forces the reader to see and feel and recognise their own complicity. She was not merely describing a prison; she was [handing] its inmates a megaphone. Each story, each testimony, removed a brick from the wall of silence that upheld the complexity of purdah.

 On this day, we celebrate Rokeya not just as a writer but as a pioneer who taught us that the personal is political and that lived experience is a powerful tool for social critique.

But how does one ensure these heartfelt testimonies are not dismissed as sentimental complaints? Begum Rokeya's satirical layout of stories appeals so sharply that it cuts through the veneer of social order. Her satire dissects patriarchal absurdities with biting clarity, inspiring admiration for her cleverness and making her critique unforgettable. Her sharp humour invites the audience to respect her vision and see the system's flaws with new eyes. She employs satire to pierce the contradictions embedded in purdah.

One of the most striking examples is her critique of the treatment of male doctors. She exposes the absurdity of a system in which women, secluded from all unrelated men, are nonetheless forced in times of grave illness to be examined by these very men. Rokeya highlights this not as devotion but as theatrical contradiction designed to uphold a shallow form of purity while sacrificing actual well-being. Her strategic use of humour is a mark of superior intellect.

By framing her arguments through satire, she undermines the authority of the male guardians (the murubbis) who enforced these rules, portraying them not as wise protectors but as foolish architects of an unworkable social system. She engages their arguments directly. When they use metaphors to justify purdah, such as comparing a woman to a precious object that must be hidden, Rokeya responds with impeccable reason. She questions why a human being, created with intellect and soul, should be equated with an inanimate object.

This was a high-stakes rhetorical move. By challenging orthodoxy on its own terms, she robbed it of its primary defence. She demonstrated that the system was not only cruel and absurd but also, by its own stated logic, fundamentally flawed. This architectural use of logic gave her work formidable credibility.

The ultimate triumph of Oborodh Bashini is not just as text but as event. In giving voice to the oborodh bashini, she ceased to be one. She implemented the solution she advocated, stepping out of the metaphorical and literary zenana to claim her place as a public intellectual and leader.

As we commemorate Begum Rokeya Day, and as the 16 Days of Activism near their end, Oborodh Bashini stands not as a relic but as a living blueprint for resistance. The stories she told are specific to a time, but the structures of silencing they represent remain familiar. The veil she sought to step out of was not only cloth but silence, ignorance and intellectual submission.

Her words, the testimony that validates, the satire that humiliates and the logic that dismantles, continue to echo, reminding us that our voices, our stories and our reason remain potent tools against modern forms of confinement that persist in our society.

To honour Begum Rokeya is to pick up the pen she wielded, to continue lifting every veil that dims the light of human potential.

(The writer is an IR graduate and a contributor at The Daily Star.)