January 3 is the birth anniversary of the social reformer and one of the greatest feminists the nation has ever seen, Savitribai Phule. She was born on January 3, 1831, in Maharashtra and played an important role in fighting for women’s rights in India.
Savitribai along with her husband Jyotirao Phule had founded one of the country’s first girl’s schools at Pune back in 1848. Savitribai is known for shattering all the shackles of patriarchy by becoming the first-ever Indian female teacher at a time where girls’ education was not a thing. In this manner, she is considered the first-ever female teacher of India.
She was married at the mere age of nine years to Jyotirao and was taught how to read and write by her husband at home only because she was illiterate at that time. She got herself enrolled in two teacher’s training programs after completing her education. She enrolled at Ahmedabad and at Pune as well. She went to become the first-ever female teacher and first-ever female headmistress as well. She also established 3 girls’ schools in Pune with her husband by the end of the year 1851.
Phule opened ‘Home for the Prevention of Infanticide’, a shelter for women where they could deliver their children safely and could also leave them for abortion if that’s what they wanted. She was known for using her voice strongly against child marriage and the dreadful Sati tradition. She later opened up a shelter for widows.
She hired her friend namely, Fatima Begum Sheikh in the Bhida Wada school as a teacher making Fatima the first-ever Muslim woman teacher in India.
This day in Maharashtra is known as ‘Balika Din’ to commemorate the legend who fought for girls all over the nation. Aside from being a social reformer, an educationalist, and a poetess, her name is etched in the minds of many for fighting for women’s rights at a time when the country needed strong-minded women like her to stand up for what was right.
She died trying to save a ten-year-old boy on March 10, 1897. Today marks her 191st birthday. This day is celebrated in schools across Maharashtra. She fought for rights at an unthinkable time for women when women did not remarry and were not allowed to get an education. She lit her husband’s funeral pyre at a time when women were burned in their husband’s pyre.
She was a reformer and her ideas are still alive today in the minds of women who are struggling to voice their opinions. She continues to inspire women today all over the country by her words and her ideas that shaped the movement for women’s rights back in the nineteenth century.
