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Fiction writer and essayist Sabiha Huq has said that misrepresenting history and hiding it from future generations can backfire, and if a generation is kept in the dark about complete history, it will harm everyone in the long run.

‘History books written by biased human beings are arbitrary in their choices of inclusion and exclusion. We should remember that misrepresenting history and hiding it from the future generation can backfire,’ said Sabiha Huq.

The writer has recently bagged the Literary Encyclopedia Book Prize 2023 from England for her book titled The Mughal Aviary: Women’s Writings in Pre-Modern India, which was simultaneously published by the UPL Bangladesh and the Vernon Press in the US in 2022.

She thinks that the attempt to forget the Mughal period from the history of present-day India is not a trivial matter.

‘I have come to know from some recent news published in the Indian newspapers that the chapters on the Mughal period are taken away from Indian school texts. Can history be erased in this way? In Bangladesh too, we witnessed similar efforts at one time,’ she said.

The writer also said that if various unknown aspects of history could be brought to light, it could offer a new trajectory that would ease the co-existence of opposing ideologies.

In her book, The Mughal Aviary: Women’s Writings in Pre-Modern India, Huq has shed light on unknown dimensions of four pre-modern time Indian Muslim women writers – Gulbadan Begum, Jahanara, Zeb-un-Nissa and Habba Khatoon – and how women persevered with their writings despite the restrictions within the zenana,

‘The first three were Mughal princesses, and Habba Khatoon was a Kashmiri queen. Although their writings are captivating and sophisticated, they are not discussed much, and they do not find a place in literary anthologies,’ mentioned Sabiha Huq, adding that the thought of writing the book came to her mind when she had found gaps in historical fictions written on the Mughal princesses.

Kathryn Lasky’s book titled Jahanara: Princess of Princesses, written in the form of a fictional diary of Mughal princess Jahanara Begum, the eldest daughter of Emperor Shah Jahan, made Sabiha Huq do a bit of research in the field.

‘When I come across that the child Jahanara calls Nur Jahan a serpent in the book, that idiosyncrasy surprised me,’ she said, mentioning that Jahanara never wrote any diary.

Subsequently, she came across three other fictional diaries in English about Jahanara. But all of which did some character assassination of her.

‘But there was no mention that she was a wonderful hagiographer. The same happened with other princesses,’ Sabiha Huq mentioned, pointing out, ‘Historical fictions could be a dangerous manoeuvring of politics.’

‘In recent times, several historical novels have been written, most of which distorted the characters of Mughal princesses,’ she said, adding that in patriarchal societies, especially by male novelists, incidents of character distortion in women-centric novels are not uncommon.

‘So, I was bound to write a book on the subject as a conscientious reader,’ she said, adding, ‘What else could I do, since men are the highest authority in the world’s patriarchal social system, and are not to be questioned.’

Feminism is a struggle against patriarchy, and it is a necessity. I also like to say that feminism is a proclamation of one’s rights, and it is not a scuffle against men, but rather a rebellion against patriarchy, the writer said, mentioning, ‘It also becomes a moral obligation, of women and men equally, to clarify that feminism is a call for equal rights for the different genders in all sectors.’

Sabiha Huq was elected as the first South Asian woman member of the International Ibsen Committee in 2018 and has worked and continues to work for two consecutive terms.

Her recent work titled Ibsen in the Decolonised South Asian Theatre has been published by Routledge in the United Kingdom. Several researchers from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Nepal have written in the book.

Besides researching on gender inequality and awareness in Bangladesh, particularly during the ‘90s at the national level, Sabiha Huq writes short stories and poems and edits a literary magazine named Dead Metaphor.

She also spoke about her upcoming venture.

‘I see life and I record it in my stories. I have written a good number of short stories. I am eyeing to publish a book in the next year,’ concluded Sabiha Huq.