Emancipation of Women and Society in Early Twentieth Century Bengal: Rokeya’s Writings and Activism through Marxist Lens

Abstract

Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, a writer and activist in the early twentieth century Bengal, pioneered women’s rights and education and struggled her entire life for the emancipation of women in a society that was largely against education and empowerment of women. She wrote and fought against all kinds of oppression, exploitation, and discrimination of women imposed by the capitalist patriarchal society and promoted the rights of education, economic and social independence for them. With remarkable clarity, she depicted the prevalent social, political, and economic issues of her time and linked the progress of society and the nation with the advancement of women's emancipation. This paper utilizes a Marxist perspective to scrutinize the literature and activism of Rokeya by examining how her literary works depict and expose the inherent flaws and shortcomings of the existing society and analyses the correlations of her views and thoughts with that of the Marxist ideology, especially on women issues. In this article it is shown that Marxist thoughts for women’s emancipation and social progress were very present in many of Rokeya’s writings. This article largely provides textual analysis reverting to classical Marxist ideas to support the viewpoint.

Keywords

• women
• marxism
• capitalism
• feminism
• society