Shaukat Osman (1917-1998) was one of the most prolific Bangladeshi writers who made his mark as a novelist, playwright and short story writer. He is one of the few sub-continental novelists who documents the travails and conflicts of Muslim women exposed to grinding poverty and starvation. This paper focuses on the sufferings and exploitation of the poor Muslim women portrayed sympathetically by Shaukat Osman in his novels Janani (1958) and The State Witness (1985). Though superstitious, the women in Janani are not orthodox. The novel, as the title suggests, is a celebration of motherhood. In The State Witness Osman looks beyond the personal and the familial, and trains his guns against the social, political and religious elements that aid and abet the sexual abuse of women in Bangladesh. With his fictionalization of the struggles of the poor Muslim woman, Shaukat Osman shows how economic hardships augment a woman's vulnerability and put her honor, happiness and even life at stake.

The life of the poor Muslim woman figures rarely in subcontinental fiction-vernacular and English. Most of the subcontinental novelists hail from the privileged classes and hence almost centering on the upper and middle class Muslim woman's experiences. The poor women, even when they appear, do so only incidentally and serve as mere appendages to the privileged protagonists. The Bangladeshi writer, Shaukat Osman, stands out in this respect. He recounts the travails and conflicts of the Muslim woman, exposed to grinding poverty and starvation in his Janani and The State Witness. Janani, Osman's first novel, is set in the archetypal Bengali village of Moheshdanga of the pre-Partition days; life here is governed by unquestionable religious, moral and sexual imperatives, which are more binding on the women. The protagonist is Dariabibi, the Janani. She marries Azhar Khan, an orthodox Muslim, after the death of her first husband and has three children by him. Osman's choice of a mother as the protagonist also marks him off from most subcontinental writers, who fictionalize the aspirations, apprehensions, struggles and rebellions of young Muslim girls and their experience of growing up in purdah-closed worlds.

Purdah is shown as being central to the life experience of the poor as it is to the rich and the nobility. The Muslim as well as the Hindu women of the village observe the purdah. The concept of honor is of paramount importance in the lives of the women of the village. "In a village community one person's scandal weighed heavily on the whole family" (Osman, 1993a; p. 202). As the custodians of honor, the women lead fettered lives.

English Studies Journal, Shaukat Osman, Economic Hardships, Muslim Woman, Orthodox Muslim, Cultural Diversions, Anachronistic Application, Quranic Laws, Obscurantist Elements, Acrimonious Relationships, Spineless Weakling, Subcontinental Novelists.