Begum Rokeya and the possibility of challenging the limits of female agency and freedom in the creation of woman

This essay offers a very brief critical reflection on Begum Rokeya’s “Nari-Srishti” or “The Creation of Woman” with a view to delineating how Rokeya, one of the foremost feminist author-activists in colonial Bengal, both critiques and satirises the cultural and political foundations of society’s normative presumptions about women. I argue that even though the title refers to “srishti,” or “birth,” the text shows how women are commonly perceived in society and how such perceptions impose control on female agencies and their desire for social mobility. Focusing on Rokeya’s retelling of the quasi-mythical story of the creation of women by the Hindu god Tvastri, I foreground how she challenges the limits imposed on female agency and freedom in a patriarchal society and, through subtle linguistic and rhetorical manoeuvrings, suggests that neither should women be consigned to particular social roles nor there can be any religious justification for the subjugation of women.