Quote by Begum Rokeya: “We are enslaved by our own ignorance.”

Freedom begins with knowledge. When people — especially women denied education — don't understand the world, their rights, or the structures that limit them, they cannot challenge those structures. Ignorance is not innocent; it is the tool by which systems of oppression sustain themselves across generations.

Sultana's Dream was published in 1905 in The Indian Ladies Magazine, at a time when women's literacy in Bengal was extremely low and female education was actively resisted by conservative sections of both Hindu and Muslim communities. Rokeya was herself largely self-educated.

Bengali Muslim feminist, writer, and educator, born in Rangpur in 1880, who pioneered advocacy for women's education in colonial India. Her satirical science fiction story 'Sultana's Dream' imagined a society where women were free and men were secluded, and she founded the first school for Muslim girls in Calcutta.