Female Education and Colonial Situation in Early Urdu Novel

Colonial predicament brought forth new social possibilities and challenges for Indian subjects. To accommodate, assimilate or resist these changes they used printed word. This technology provided them the space to understand, interpret and construct the situation and disseminate their thoughts and reactions in forms of literary genres. They introduced cultural reform or revivalist tropes of female education in newly introduced genre, the novel. It is interesting and important to underscore these trends. In this article I will use comparative methodology to understand the different reactions of Muslim elites regarding the female education. Nazir Ahmad's Miratul Uroos(1869), Shad Azeem Abadi's Soratul Khayal(1881) and Nawab Afzal-ud-Din Ahmad's Fasan-e-Khursheedi (1891) will be the primary texts to underscore the Indian reactions to the colonial situation. This will help us understanding the transforming middle class milieu of late 19th century and the genealogy of female pedagogy in the subcontinent.