Savitribai Phule waged
an inspired life-long battle against caste inhumanity, patriarchy and the oppressive orthodoxy of her time.
She rose to become modern India’s First Women Teacher, and the first to lead an
emancipator struggle of women, dalits, lower castes, workers and peasants.
As a teacher she encouraged women education. She was often abused by groups of men with orthodox beliefs who opposed education for women. Impressed by Savitri, her student Muktabai poignantly describes the wretchedness and lambastes the brahmanical religion and culture for degrading and dehumanizing her people.
As a teacher she encouraged women education. She was often abused by groups of men with orthodox beliefs who opposed education for women. Impressed by Savitri, her student Muktabai poignantly describes the wretchedness and lambastes the brahmanical religion and culture for degrading and dehumanizing her people.
As a social revolutionary she has an outstanding role in women’s empowerment, especially widow’s welfare. The Phule couple set up a home for the welfare of unwed mothers and their offspring, in 1853. Savitribai proved to be a caring mother to the women who found refuge in home. She is also known to have taken the lead in organizing the boycott by the barbers against the shaving heads of widows in the 1860s.
In the 1870s, the Phules were actively involved in famine relief. They were instrumental in starting 52 boarding schools for the welfare of the children orphaned in the famines. Mahatma Phule passed away on Nov. 1890. Even at the funeral, Savitribai showed her gritty character. She stepped forward to light the pyre. This perhaps, this was one of the very rare instances in the history of India, where the wife lit the funeral pyre of the husband.
In 1897, an epidemic swept Pune. Savitribai was engaged personally in the relief effort during this tragedy as well. This time, she was afflicted by plague, and died on March 10, 1897.
Savitribai Phule, struggled and suffered with her revolutionary husband in an equal measure, but remains obscured due to casteist and sexist negligence. Apart from her identity as Jotirao Phule’s wife, she is little known even in academia. Modern India’s first woman teacher, a radical exponent of mass and female education, a champion of women’s liberation, a pioneer of engaged poetry, a courageous mass leader who took on the forces of caste and patriarchy certainly had her independent identity and contribution. It is indeed a measure of the ruthlessness of elite-controlled knowledge-production that a figure as important as Savitribai Phule fails to find any mention in the history of modern India. Her life and struggle deserves to be appreciated by a wider spectrum, and made known to everybody.
