3 January: Marking Savitribai Phule's birth anniversary

By: WE Staff | Monday, 3 January 2022

Social reformer and feminist icon Savitribai Phule’s birth anniversary is marked on January 3. Phule has played an important role in raising women rights in India and was born in Maharashtra on January 3, 1831.

In 1848, In Pune, at Bhide Wada, Savitribai together with her husband Jyotirao Phule founded India’s first girls’ schools.

She was illiterate at the time, she was married to Jyotiba, but her husband taught her to read and write at their home. She enrolled herself in two teacher’s training programs, after completing her education, one in Ahmedabad and another in Pune. She became India’s first female teacher as well as the first Indian headmistress following her training.

By the end of 1851, Savitribai Phule later established three schools for girls in Pune, with her husband. For the widows, Phule later opened a women’s shelter called Home for the Prevention of Infanticide, to deliver their children and leave them for adoption.

She strongly opposed the Sati tradition ad was against the child marriage. Widow Remarriage was an issue for which Phule raised her voice.

She hired Fatima Begum Sheikh, who was sister of Jyotiba’s friend Usman Shiekh, in Bhide Wada school, where she became the first Muslim woman teacher in the country.

Savitribai continued to teach girls and children of different castes despite facing resistance from the local community with conservative views. While trying to save a 10-year-old boy she died on March 10, 1897 after contracting a disease.