Coping with the Challenges of Women Education in 20th Century India: A Critical Study of Muslim Response in the Form of Secular-Religious Dichotomy

Abstract

Muslim scholars as to the torchbearer of social and moral reforms, along with other basic rights, strived hard to ensure the right of education in the Indo-Pak subcontinent. Even in the pre-colonial period women got basic but necessity-based education at the domestic level as they were not allowed to join formal educational institutions due to the strict observance of the veil but later, they started their formal education. However, in the post-1857 milieu, Muslim scholars had different views due to the implementation of British Education Policy under the reforms of Lord Bobington Macaulay (1800-1859) and secular-religious dichotomy appeared in their factions, but they soon realized that Muslim women, in order to cope with the modern needs of the time must join modern educational institutions. The Muslim scholars like Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (1817-1898) and his associates, especially Sheikh Abdullah, Sayyid Mumtaz Ali and Muslim women like Waheed Jahan Begum (1886-1939), Muhammadi Begum (1878-1908), Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain (1880-1932), Khujista Akhtar Banu (1872-1919) and Sultan Jahan Begum of Bhopal (1858-1930) who appeared as the staunch advocates of Muslim women education were also parts and parcel of Aligarh Movement. They not only sensitized the need for Muslim womens’ education but also helped in bridging the gulf between the different belligerent views which had their own position, opinion and reservations, in the presence of British Colonial Rule (1857-1947). The research in hand explores the efforts of Muslim scholars in secular-religious dichotomy which later came on the same page by accommodating variant views for the promotion of Muslim women education in the 20^th-century Indian milieu