If I ask you who is your favourite cricketer, there will be many names. But if I ask you who is your favourite fielder in the game of cricket, then many will say Jonty Rhodes. In 2015, Jonty Rhodes was in India when his wife Melanie gave birth to a baby girl. They named the girl ‘India’, India Jeanne Jonty Rhodes.
Another baby girl was named ‘India’ in 1929. She was Princess of Afghanistan. Princess India was born to the King of Afghanistan in exile Amanullah Khan and his wife, Queen Soraya Tarzi. Soraya Tarzi was the first queen consort of Afghanistan in the early 20th century and the wife of King Amanullah Khan. Born in Syria, she was educated by her father, who was the Afghan leader and intellectual Sardar Mahmud Beg Tarzi. She belonged to the Mohammadzai Pashtun tribe, a sub-tribe of the Barakzai dynasty.
Soraya Shahzada Tarzi was born on 24 November 1899, in Damascus, Syria, then part of the Ottoman Empire. She was the daughter of the Afghan political figure Sardar Mahmud Beg Tarzi, and granddaughter of Sardar Ghulam Muhammad Tarzi. She studied in Syria, learning Western and modern values there, which would influence her future actions and beliefs. Her mother was Asma Rasmiya Khanum, second wife of her father, and daughter of Sheikh Muhammad Saleh al-Fattal Effendi, of Aleppo, Muezzin of the Umayyad Mosque.
When Amanullah’s father (Habibullah Khan) became the King of Afghanistan in October 1901, one of his most important contributions to his nation was the return of Afghan exiles, specifically that of the Tarzi family and others. This is because the Tarzi family promoted the modernization of Afghanistan. Upon her family’s return to Afghanistan, Soraya Tarzi would later meet and marry King Amanullah Khan.
After the Tarzis returned to Afghanistan, they were received at Court as wished by the Amir Habibullah Khan. This is where Soraya Tarzi met Prince Amanullah, son of the Amir Habibullah Khan. They struck an affinity. The prince, who was a sympathiser of Mahmud Tarzi’s liberal ideas, married Soraya Tarzi on 30 August 1913 at Qawm-i-Bagh Palace in Kabul. Soraya Tarzi was King Amanullah Khan’s only wife, which broke centuries of tradition. It was when she married into the monarchy that she grew to be one of the region’s most important figures.
When the prince became Amir in 1919 and subsequently King in 1926, the Queen had an important role in the evolution of the country and was always close to her husband. He had her take part in all national events. He said, “I am your King, but the Minister of Education is my wife — your Queen”. Queen Soraya was the first Muslim consort who appeared in public together with her husband, something which was unheard of at the time. She participated with him in the hunting parties, riding on horseback, and in some Cabinet meetings.
In 1928 Queen Soraya received an honorary degree from the University of Oxford. As Queen of Afghanistan, she was not only filling a position – but became one of the most influential women in the world at that time. Amanullah drew up the first constitution, establishing the basis for the formal structure of the government and setting up the role of the monarch within the constitutional framework. Queen Soraya Tarzi, would be the face of this change.
King Amanullah Khan publicly campaigned against the veil, against polygamy, and encouraged the education of girls not just in Kabul but also in the countryside. At a public function, Amanullah said that “Islam did not require women to cover their bodies or wear any special kind of veil“. At the conclusion of the speech, Queen Soraya tore off her veil (hejab) in public and the wives of other officials present at the meeting followed this example. Throughout her husband’s reign, Queen Soraya wore wide-brimmed hats with a diaphanous veil attached to them. Many women from Amanullah’s family publicly participated in organizations and went on to become government officials later in life.
Queen Soraya encouraged women to get an education and opened the first primary school for girls in Kabul, the Masturat School. She sent 15 young women to Turkey for higher education in 1928. Soraya was instrumental in enforcing change for women and publicly exhorted them to be active participants in nation-building. In 1926, at the seventh anniversary of Independence from the British, Soraya gave a public speech:
It (Independence) belongs to all of us and that is why we celebrate it. Do you think, however, that our nation from the outset needs only men to serve it? Women should also take their part as women did in the early years of our nation and Islam. From their examples, we must learn that we must all contribute toward the development of our nation and that this cannot be done without being equipped with knowledge. So we should all attempt to acquire as much knowledge as possible, in order that we may render our services to society in the manner of the women of early Islam.
Part of her speech
She founded the first magazine for women called Ershad-I-Niswan (Guidance for Women) as well as the women’s organisation Anjuman-i Himayat-i-Niswan. She founded the girls’ schools Masturat School (1920) and Ismat (Malalai) School (1921) and the Masturat Hospital for women (1924) and contributed to the women’s magazine Ishadul Naswan (1922), which was edited by her mother.
Owing to the reforms King Amanullah Khan instituted, the country’s religious sects grew violent. In 1929, the King abdicated in order to prevent a civil war and went into exile. Their first stop was India. Here Soraya gave birth to their youngest daughter Princess India of Afghanistan. She is 92 years old and now lives in Rome, Italy.
Unfortunately, most of the ideas of King Amanullah Khan and Queen Soraya Tarzi remained merely theories. The country was not ready to accept such a reformed (or normal) way of life regarding women. Enemies who wanted to see the country crumble wagged their tongues claiming that education was unreligious, it would only ruin the children and turn them into infidels. The reforms became increasingly difficult to implement. And Afghanistan did not take well to a woman in power and holding her own. It was the royal family’s opposition to the veil that finally lead to a protest from the public. In an attempt to ban the veil, Queen Soraya removed her veil in public with the king beside her in support.
Her act, though encouraged many women to follow suit, was short-lived. Soon after the incident, the public’s anger and protests knew no bounds. In 1929, the King and Queen were deposed and under their successor, Habibullah Ghazi, the reforms for women’s rights soon crumbled to dust. Schools for girls were banned, women went back to the shadows from professional and public life, their individual rights were stripped, purdah was reinforced and the veil was back on. And so the former royal couple’s attempt to unveil the veil only lead to a huge veiling of their own rules and reforms. They went on a self-exile to Italy.
Habibullah Ghazi’s reign was a short one- a mere nine months. Being an ethnic Tajik, the public opposed his rule even more than they did of King Amanullah. The majority of the country were Pashtuns, and to have a Tajik ruler impose his rules on them did not go down well. It was Amanullah’s cousin, Mohammed Nadir Shah who defeated and executed Ghazi.
Nadir Shah did not have his cousin’s vision of women enjoying equal rights. None of Amanullah’s reforms was brought back. Although he did restore political stability (though only for a very short period of time) by signing treaties with other countries, women remained behind the veil for the most part during his rule. Schools for girls remained shut. Newspapers enlightening women about their rights were banned. The Afghan women who were pursuing their education abroad were ordered by the government to come back and the veil was reinforced on them. A few women who refused were even put in prison. The only positive move that came to be in 1931 was that women were granted permission to attend classes at Masturat Hospital in Kabul. Today Taliban also says, women can only become doctors if they want to choose a profession.
In 1933, Nadir Shah was assassinated, paving the way for his nineteen-year-old son, Md. Zahir Shah to become king. Women’s issues did not come up until after the Second World War.
After the war, he saw that modernisation was necessary for the country, and this encouraged the woman’s issues to resurface again. Queen Humaira Begum headed the Women’s Welfare Association in 1946. Afghan’s first modern university, Kabul Univerity, was established, and women were accepted. In 1953, Mohammed Daoud Khan was elected Prime Minister. Social reforms that gave women a more prominent role in the public sphere were put into practice by the PM. While Amanullah Khan had tried implementing numerous reforms all at once, Daoud Khan was gradual in his approach, which could have been the reason why he faced less opposition. He appointed women to work at Radio Kabul in 1957. Women delegates were sent to Cairo to attend the Asian Women’s Conference. 1958 saw the employment of 40 girls in the government pottery factory.
As it always was, the subject of the veil was a touchy issue with the Afghans. So far, no riots had broken out with the introduction of the women workers mentioned above. Confident from this success, the government’s next step was to remove the veil. So in 1959, Queen Humaira, Princess Bilqis and Zamina Begum (PM’s wife) showed up sans veil to watch the military parade. Islamic clerics protested by sending a letter to the PM, adamant that the Islamic law be followed. The PM invited them over and asked them for any proof in the Quran that stated women must be veiled. No proof was found, and the PM declared that women in the royal family wouldn’t veil themselves since it wasn’t demanded by Islam. The example was soon followed by women whose families worked in the government sector and urban women. Women had educational opportunities and worked as professionals. Highlights of this period include
- 1964- Women were granted universal suffrage and equal rights (Followed in cities, while the countryside still remained patriarchal.)
- 1977- Meena Kamal found the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. Still in operation in Pakistan.
- 1978- Afghan Women’s Council gave women the right to choose their partners and careers. Provided women with social services, battled illiteracy, provided training in various work fields.
Centuries have come and gone in Afghanistan, but women have had it rough for the most part. Violent crimes have been committed against women in the name of religion, and the world would ask them why they didn’t fight back. A history of the rulers, political and the present day scenario of the rights of Afghan women is narrated here, to get a glimpse of their world.
