An educator over many decades, Deshabandu Jezima Ismail’s focus on her children’s education is not what one would expect. “I didn’t concentrate on the studies at all when I was the principal of Muslim Ladies College, that I gave in the teacher’s care. I only studied the way the children were going to be build up their personalities. Get over their shyness and be proud of the fact that they are women”, says Mrs. Ismail with a smile on her face.
Mrs. Ismail hails from a remote village in Akaraipattu and has strived throughout her life to make the girls and women, especially from Muslim communities, feel proud of themselves. Particularly when she was the principal of the Muslim Ladies College (1975 - 1955), she put a lot of effort into making her students understand that personality matters. When it was seen as a crime for a girl to be in front of the mirror admiring her beauty, a simple change Mrs. Ismail made in the school was to put a mirror in the corridor, where she got the children to turn and look at themselves and to see how they look. She proudly said that brought in a lot of confidence, empowerment, and personality into those Muslim girls, who were usually brought up in a way to feel afraid in public and traditionally hunched to avoid attention. “Values must be an essential part of education and growth values cannot be just academic sharpness scholarliness, That’s not enough” is Mrs. Ismail’s view of education. She has worked hard to provide this throughout her career.
Hesitation is something Mrs. Ismail feels that she has never had in her life, especially when carrying out her duties in whatever position she has held. Reflecting on one of her biggest challenges during her tenure as the acting chairman of SLBC in 1980 (the first woman to be appointed to this position), she remembers how there were only 15 guards given for protection, despite SLBC being the focus of many attacks. She boldly rang the then-President J.R. Jayawardena for a meeting to ask for this to be rectified and have her request fulfilled. “I wouldn’t hesitate to do it because it had to be done it was part of duty, and what can they do to me,” she says firmly. Throughout her life, she has resisted saying, “I resist things that are not meant to be my way. But it’s an unconscious kind of feeling”. Former commissioner of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, Chancellor of the South Eastern University of Sri Lanka, chairperson of People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL), founder of the Muslim Women’s Research and Action Forum (MWRAF), and the President of the Sri Lanka Muslim Women’s Conference (SLMWC) are just a few of the prominent positions she has held in her life.
When recalling her childhood memories, Mrs. Ismail speaks with joy when her father enrolled her and her sisters in dance classes (Manipuri, Bale, and Bharathanatyam) and music (Veena, Harmonium, and violin). Mrs. Ismail loved dancing and music from her childhood and shared, “I hated teaching, in the sense I wanted to be a film star.”
She highlights her father - an irrigation engineer - as one of her biggest supporters. When she recalls her memories of him, she remembers how he would respond to comments about having three girls and thus not having his name recognized later, saying with pride, “I don’t want my name to be carried. My girls will be as good as boys, and I will empower them to the hilt”. While Mrs. Ismail describes her mother as a more typical Muslim woman doing service to her husband, she also remembers her as someone feminine in her ways and masculine in the way she undertook challenges. Mrs. Ismail’s parents’ father and mother are two crucial pillars who provided a strong foundation for the betterment of their children. They also ensured that their children were raised to be rational and firm in their decisions, something reflected in many of Mrs. Ismail’s decisions.
With a smile, Mrs. Ismail describes her marriage as a “fairytale,” With laughter, she fondly remembers late Prof. Mahroof Ismail as one of her biggest supporters. She added, “he loved the work I did, and I loved the work he did; we never interfered in each other’s work.” Taking about the support and the acknowledgement he provided, she shared, “If I go and get the bouquet of flowers, he’ll be the first person to climb the steps to carry the bouquet.”
Mrs. Ismail is a fearless woman, and despite coming from a Muslim community, she dared to wear clothes of her choice (Shalwar Kameez and shirt & trousers), wear some make-up, sometimes even a pottu, and Jimmiki. Though Mrs. Ismail was born Muslim, she has been exposed to all the different cultures throughout her life. She has been at church choirs and Buddhist Temple Banas in many instances. When sharing her connections with the priests from other religions, she shared how the late Professor Bellanwila Wimalarathana Thero would look at her and say, “here my Sri Lankan comes.” This has brought her many challenges and astonished her community, “but nothing could be done about it. Because I took it for granted, this is my life…. I was lucky that I was given this sense of being proud of everything so that it wasn’t difficult to practise tolerance and respect and all that it wasn’t a thing”, she says.
Displaying the spittoons at the entrance of her house, she describes them as one of her dearest artefacts as they were used by her grandfather 50 years ago and a personal treasure for her. Mrs. Ismail also holds dear a painting born from a dream she had many eons ago where someone like a prophet with a lantern was leading while she was walking on a path in a forest, and the light of this lamp guiding her future. She shared this dream with her sister, a painter, and nearly five years later, her sister painted her dream and sent her the picture. “Actually, I wouldn’t say it’s only a dream. It’s a vision”, she says.
Mrs. Ismail hopes that in the future, we will have humaneness drawn from her love of people as she refers to collecting people as her hobby. Her concept of leadership is that “accessibility must be the first principle,” and she made sure to provide that accessibility whenever she was in a leadership position.
As a great patriot, when asked to describe herself, she says, “Jezima Ismail a Sri Lankan, just a Sri Lankan.” She refers to Sri Lanka as her dream world and dream island and regrets that the Sri Lankans are not strong enough about their identity of Sri Lankans, and she wishes that should be changed and could be changed within her time. Mrs. Ismail is also very proud of being a woman, and she has taught many young girls and women to be proud of themselves, sharing her thoughts, “whether you’re thin or fat, black or white hardly matters; what matters is the way you hold yourself the way you walk…. You must be gracious but impressive and definitely authoritative.
(Abilesha Segar is currently a Program Manager at Everystory Sri Lanka and the Project Manager for the Stories of Sri Lankan Women. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree and a Master’s Degree from the University of Colombo and moonlights as a Tamil compere, moderator, and voice artist. Most importantly to her, she is the mother of a wonderful toddler who has yet to miss any Everystory meeting she attends.)
(Ruwani De Silva identifies as a feminist activist, master trainer, and digital media and brand consultant. Based in Colombo, she’s interested in building strategies and educational material that reaches every part of the country on all social issues. As a trilingual trainer, she also takes pride in travelling to all parts of the country to conduct programs and discussions with youth and women.)
Reference Links and Further Reading
I wanted to be a dancer - Jezima Ismail, educationist, Sunday Observer, 4th September 2016, Sundayobserver.lk: Spectrum | I wanted to be a dancer - Jezima Ismail, educationist
What Sri Lanka can learn from Deshabandu Jezima Ismail, DailyFT, 20th March 2021, What Sri Lanka can learn from Deshabandu Jezima Ismail | Daily FT
Jezima Ismail, Lanka Woman, September 2014, Lanka Woman - Sri Lanka’s oldest selling lifestyle magazine since 1984. (l .lk)
Notes
This article is pending support to be translated into Sinhala and Tamil. Please email storiesofslwomen@everystorysl.org if you would like to support us with translations or if you have any questions.