Sultana's Dream
Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain (9 December 1880[b] – 9 December 1932),
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 Bangladesh and
India.She advocated for men and women to be treated equally as
rational beings, noting that the lack of education for women was
responsible for their inferior economic position. Her major works include
Matichur (A String of Sweet Pearls, 1904 and 1922), a collection of
essays in two volumes expressing her feminist thoughts; Sultana's
Dream (1908), a feminist science fiction novella set in Ladyland ruled by
women; Padmarag ("Essence of the Lotus", 1924) depicting the
difficulties faced by Bengali wives;[5] and Abarodhbasini (The Confined
Women, 1931), a spirited attack on the extreme forms of purdah that
endangered women's lives and self-image.
Summary
Sultana's Dream takes place in the female utopia Ladyland, where men
are excluded from the community and relegated to mardanas, the male
form of the female zenana, where women were kept secluded from
society during the practice of purdah. Sultana, lounging in a chair and
contemplating the "condition of Indian womanhood," awakes to find
herself in a fictional version of her home in Calcutta. Although she is
nervous to go outside at first, describing herself as a woman who is
practicing purdah and therefore unable to go outside and into spaces
with men, a woman who Sultana mistakes for one of her own
friends—Sister Sara—comes and accompanies her throughout
Ladyland. Sister Sara shows Sultana around the country, explaining all
of the technological advancements and improvements the women have
been able to make ever since eliminating men from public social life.
Without men, the women of Ladyland have been able to revolutionize
society. They move around in flying cars and automated agriculture
using electricity. There are no longer any vehicular or public
transportation accidents, and crime has been entirely eliminated. The
women live in peace and have enough time to accomplish both their
regular work, which they do in laboratories, and hobbies like embroidery.
As Sister Sara describes, women are far more efficient at working than
men. Sister Sara and Sultana engage in a dialogue during which Sister
Sara uses several metaphors to explain how women have come to
dominate society, even though she admits that men are physically
stronger. She explains that Ladyland was founded after women were
able to gain access to university education and begin to develop their
own technological inventions. During a war with a neighboring country,
one of the female scientists—referred to as a Lady Principal—was able
to engineer a machine that harnessed solar heat.
While men were busy fighting the war using physical violence, the
women utilized the solar-heat weapon and won the war, imprisoning the
men in the process. After their victory, the women were able to develop
Ladyland as a female-only society. The women practice a religion that is
founded on "Love and Truth," and under the Queen's reign, refuse to
trade with any country where women continue to be kept in zenanas.
Sultana is amazed at the utopian qualities of Ladyland and after touring
around its laboratories and universities, falls asleep on Sister Sara's
flying car, only to wake once more back in her Calcutta home. Despite
Ladyland's verisimilitude, the feminist utopia is revealed to have been
only a dream.
