Zaib-un-Nissa Hamidullah

Born in 1918 in Bengal, Zaib-un-Nissa moved to Punjab after her marriage in 1940 and became known as Zeb-un-Nissa Hamidullah. Her father, S. Wajid Ali (1890–1951), was primarily a Bengali writer, essayist, novelist, and nationalist intellectual. He is the first person to translate the writings of Muhammad Iqbal from Urdu into Bengali.

Zaib-un-Nissa's literary career had already begun several years earlier. In 1939, she published her first poem in the Illustrated Weekly of India, a prominent publication based in Mumbai. By 1943, her collection of poetry, Indian Bouquet, was published by Gulistan Publishing House in Calcutta and became a bestseller.

When Pakistan was created in 1947, Hamidullah found herself living in the new country alongside her husband, Khalifa Muhammad Hamidullah, who was a senior executive at the Bata Shoe Company. It was in Pakistan that her work as a journalist would become increasingly significant.

Hamidullah began contributing to The Dawn, the newspaper founded by Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Eventually, she was given a weekly column titled “Through a Woman’s Eyes.”

The title reflected the expectations placed upon women journalists at the time: they were expected to observe the world, but primarily from the perspective of women and domestic concerns.

Hamidullah, however, had other ideas. In 1951, she wrote a column addressing the ongoing problems of misgovernance in Pakistan. The piece was not published. On May 12, 1951, the newspaper's News Editor wrote to her explaining why:

“The reason was that it dealt with problems other than feminine.”

Editor Altaf Husain wanted her column to be “exclusively confined to women's problems.” For Hamidullah, this restriction became a turning point. Rather than limiting her writing to the boundaries imposed upon her, she created a platform of her own.

In 1952, Hamidullah launched her own monthly magazine, The Mirror. The publication quickly became one of the most successful magazines of its time. Unlike the narrow definition of women's journalism that had previously been imposed upon her, The Mirror allowed Hamidullah to engage with broader political and social questions.

Her grit and willingness to challenge power brought her into direct conflict with the state. In 1957, the government of General Iskander Mirza sought to prohibit the publication of The Mirror because of its harsh criticism of the government. Hamidullah responded by taking the military government to court.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan ultimately overrode the government's ban, allowing the magazine to continue. Her confrontation with authority did not end there. When General Ayub Khan assumed the presidency, The Mirror continued to criticise what it viewed as government misgovernance. Hamidullah went so far as to advise Ayub Khan to abdicate.

Pressure was brought against her, but it failed to silence her. Eventually, Ayub Khan did abdicate when political circumstances turned severely against him. In 1969, at the age of 51, Zaib-un-Nissa Hamidullah closed The Mirror and sold its press. She then accompanied her husband to Ireland.

Her career had begun with poetry and literary writing, but it evolved into something considerably larger. She became a journalist who challenged the boundaries placed around women's voices, an editor who confronted governments, and a publisher who built her own platform when an established newspaper attempted to restrict her.

Zaib-un-Nissa Hamidullah's story is therefore not simply one of a pioneering woman journalist. Every generation has editors, institutions, or conventions that quietly suggest certain voices should remain within carefully drawn boundaries. Zaib-un-Nissa Hamidullah taught us this: If the space does not exist, create it yourself.