Pardah or purdah is a religious and social practice of gender partition prevalent among some Muslim and Hindu communities. It takes two forms: social partition of the sexes and the requirement that women cover their bodies so as to cover their skin and conceal their form. A woman who practices purdah can be referred to as pardanashin or purdahnishan. The term purdah is also used to describe related practices, such as the pre-election period of sensitivity occurring in the weeks leading up to a general election or referendum.
Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, commonly known as Begum Rokeya, was a prominent Bengali feminist thinker, writer, educator and political activist from British India. She is widely regarded as a pioneer of women's liberation in India and Bangladesh.
Sultana's Dream is a 1905 Bengali feminist utopian story in English, written by Begum Rokeya, also known as Rokeya Sahkawat Hossain, a Muslim feminist, writer and social reformer from Bengal. It was published in the same year in Madras-based English periodical The Indian Ladies Magazine.
Jasodhara Bagchi was a leading Indian feminist professor, author, critic and activist. She was the founder and director of the School of Women's Studies at Jadavpur University. Her books include Loved and Unloved – The Girl Child and Trauma and Triumph – Gender and Partition in Eastern India. She also founded the women's rights organization Sachetana.
Sarala Devi Chaudhurani was an Indian educationist and political activist, who founded Bharat Stree Mahamandal in Allahabad in 1910. This was the first national-level women's organization in India. One of the primary goals of the organization was to promote female education. The organization opened several offices in Lahore, Allahabad, Delhi, Karachi, Amritsar, Hyderabad, Kanpur, Bankura, Hazaribagh, Midnapur, and Kolkata to improve the situation of women all over India.
Mohammad A. Quayum is an academic, writer, editor, critic and translator.
Nawab Begum Faizunnesa Choudhurani was Zamindar of Homnabad-Pashchimgaon Estate in present-day Comilla District, Bangladesh. She is most famous for her campaign for female education and other social issues. In appreciation of her social work, in 1889 Queen Victoria awarded Faizunnesa the title of "Nawab", making her the first female Nawab in South Asia.
Nawab Faizunnesa Government Girls' High School is a girls' school in Comilla, Bangladesh, established in 1873 by Faizunnesa Choudhurani, who would in 1889 be titled India's only female nawab by Queen Victoria. Faizunnesa, a wealthy zamindar, established Faizunnesa Girls' Pilot High School, having noted the need for female education which would accommodate Muslim girls practising purdah. The school taught its children in the local Bengali language rather than Urdu or Persian which were the standard languages of education at the time. The students also learned English. During the early years of its establishment, it was treated as the English medium school for girls. It was converted to a junior high school in 1889, and to a high school in 1931.
Tista Bagchi, Professor of Linguistics in the University of Delhi, is a distinguished Indian linguist and ethicist. Bagchi trained in Sanskrit College, Kolkata, the University of Delhi, and the University of Chicago, from where she obtained her PhD in Linguistics, her work spans issues of semantics and syntax in languages in general and South Asian languages in particular, questions of ethics in the application of medical technology and social interaction, and translations of iconic texts in Bangla literature and comparative philology. Bagchi has also been active in the area of cognitive sciences with special interests in the relationships amongst sentence structure, computation, linguistic meaning, and human cognition. Bagchi was the Robert F. & Margaret S. Goheen Fellow for the academic year 2001–2002 at the National Humanities Center, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, and a scientist under the CSIR Mobility Scheme at the National Institute of Science, Technology, and Development Studies, New Delhi, for two years during 2010–2012.
Anjuman-i-Ulama-i-Bangala, was an association of Muslim religious leaders in British India's Bengal Presidency. It later formed a branch of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind by the name Jamiat Ulema-e-Bangala in 1921.
Nurjahan Begum was the first female journalist in Bangladesh and a trailblazer for female journalists in South Asia. Begum was awarded Ekushey Padak in 2011 by the Government of Bangladesh. She served as the editor of Begum magazine.
Feminism in Bangladesh seeks equal rights of women in Bangladesh through social and political change. Article 28 of Bangladesh constitution states that "Women shall have equal rights with men in all spheres of the State and of public life".
Rubaiyat Hossain is a Bangladeshi film director, writer, and producer. She made the films Meherjaan (2011), Under Construction (2015) and Made in Bangladesh (2019). In 2023, she becomes the second female director to win Bangladesh National Film Award for Best Director for Made in Bangladesh. Made in Bangladesh was listed in criterion collections hidden-gems of the 2010s. Hossain is currently working on her fourth feature film Difficult Bride. Hossain is also the founder Sultana’s Dream, a funding and mentorship grant to empower, promote and support the next generation of women filmmakers and storytellers in Bangladesh.
Sara Hossain is a Bangladeshi lawyer. She is a barrister in the Supreme Court of Bangladesh. She is the honorary executive director of the Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST), a major legal aid provider. She has been at the forefront of advocating for women's rights in Bangladeshi courts and played a key role in drafting legal reforms to protect women. She was the plaintiff's lawyer in the landmark case of Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association (BNWLW) v. Bangladesh, in which the Supreme Court supported the judicial practice of referring to international human rights law in the absence of domestic legislation. She is known for her role in challenging fatwa violence when a fatwa is issued to mete out punishment to women and girls. She co-edited 'Honour': Crimes, Paradigms and Violence Against Women with Lynn Welchman.
Husna Banu Khanam was a Bangladeshi educationist, writer and Nazrul singer. She was a pioneer of Bengali Muslim women journalism. In 1999, she received the Ekushey Padak Award for her contribution in music, and in 2004, she received the Begum Rokeya Medal for her contribution to the socio-economic development of women by the Government of Bangladesh.
Nurun Nahar Faizannesa was a Bangladeshi feminist and social activist. She was the first elected female member of the syndicate of the University of Dhaka and the National Pay Commission of Bangladesh.
Masuda Khatun was a pioneering Bengali feminist and secularist. Her pen name was Mrs M Rahman.
The Ahmadi was a historic fortnightly magazine published in Tangail.
Nabanoor was a monthly Bengali literary magazine published from Kolkata. It was a progressive magazine that encouraged contribution by both male and female authors.
Firdous Azim is a professor of English at BRAC University, a literary critic, and a women's rights activist. She is the chairperson of the Department of English and Humanities at BRAC University. She is a member of Naripokkho.
