Asif Jahan Begam was a Muslim woman writer from Hyderabad (Deccan) who was active from at least the 1910s through the 1930s and 1940s. Her life and workplace are squarely within what scholars have described as an unbroken 150-year tradition of women’s prose writing in Urdu in Hyderabad — a tradition that has been subject to a “triple marginalisation” of gender, region, and the low status accorded to the culture of princely states by colonial historiography. From her literary output, it is clear that she was literate, educated, connected to the literary networks of Hyderabad, and sufficiently distinguished to be entrusted with the editorship of a major periodical.
The most robust aspect of Asif Jahan Begam’s career is her role as editor of the Hyderabad edition of Tahzeeb-e-Niswan, spanning from January 1926 to at least 1946. The existence of a specific Hyderabad edition — distinct from the Lahore parent publication — with Asif Jahan Begam at its helm indicates her centrality to this Deccan literary network and her institutional standing as a woman of letters. Her earlier association with the journal as a contributor indicates that she published short stories in Tehzeeb-e-Niswan, including “Kaukab” (1919) and “Salgirah” (1920).
Literary Contributions and Style
The major literary work attributed to Asif Jahan Begam is Gul-e-Khandan (The Laughing Flower), described as a collection of humorous essays and character sketches (khaake), published in 1973 by the Aazam Steam Press, Hyderabad — a press that printed educational and literary texts from as early as the 1920s.
Her writing falls within the genre of tanz-o-mizah (humour and satire) combined with the khaaka (pen-portrait), two genres in which Hyderabadi women writers excelled but which, as scholars have repeatedly noted, have received almost no attention from mainstream Urdu literary historians. Humorous essays and pen-portraits of literary friends have been a notable tradition in Hyderabad’s women’s writing; this genre of tanz-o-mizah has received some institutional support in Hyderabad but has been mostly ignored by scholars and translators in the wider world of Urdu literature.
Her writing often provides a unique female perspective on the everyday occurrences and cultural nuances of the time.