Rashid Jahan: An Iconoclast

The name of Dr. Rashid Jahan will always be remembered as someone who happened to be a trailblazing figure. Apart from being a doctor, Jahan carved her niche as a dedicated writer. With her bold themes, her works, like her personality, are also very striking. This paper attempts to study different aspects of Jahan’s works which prove her as an iconoclast, as a strongly dynamic figure who touched upon various themes in her oeuvre which are relevant even today. This paper deals with her works like Behind the Veil and “A Tour of Delhi” which present Jahan as a devoted feminist who foregrounds the feminist issues plaguing Muslim women in the society. Some of her works like “Ift̤arī” and “Ṣifar” bring out her Marxist ideology where she raises her voice against the class division of the existing capitalist society. Jahan was also a true patriot of India who wrote to propagate communal harmony in the society where people identified themselves as Indians, and not as Hindus or Muslims. She was a messenger of peace and brotherhood as we see in her two plays “Paṛosī” and “Hindustanī” discussed here.