The Quaid on the Role of Women in Society

Quaid-e-Azam with lady workers in Bombay

Muslim women of the Indian subcontinent observed strict purdah or seclusion well into the twentieth century. They spent their lives confined to the four wall of their homes. Reformers had advocated their education and a better treatment, but no one had asked for emancipation Nazir Ahmed had persuasively argued in his novel in favour of educating Muslim Women, but within their homes. Altaf Hussain Hali had used the powerful vehicle of his poetry to criticize the treatment meted out to women. Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, the most important Muslim reformer of the 19th century, had argued the Muslim women’s education must wait till the Muslim men had been given modern education.

It was not till the launching of the movement of Anjuman-e-Khuddam-e Ka ‘abah in 1913, that Muslim women began to get involved in any kind of public activity, although it seems to have been restricted to raising funds. It was the Khilafat movement and the imprisonment of the Ali brothers in 1917, which brought their mother, Bi Amman, out. She addressed large gatherings from behind purdah, which she continued to observe. However, Bi Amman and her daughter-in-law Amjadi Begum’s contribution, significant though it was, did not bring out Muslim women in any substantial numbers.

It was the Quaid-i-Azam who broke away from the accepted and traditional view of the role of Muslim women in society, and brought about a radical transformation in it. The Quaid was responding to a change that was sweeping the world, and had gained momentum in the post-First World War period. The Suffragette momentum in the post-First World War period. The Suffragette movement and the women’s struggle for emancipation, was an important element of the social and political changes taking place in the west. In the Indian sub-continent its expression could be seen in the sudden outburst of women’s magazine that began to published from different parts of India, in the decade before the outbreak of Great War.