Savitribai Jyotirao Phule

 

It is being said that there is a woman behind each successful man but it's opposite in case of Savitribai Phule. Savitribai played a pivotal role in women’s empowerment with the support of her husband, Jyotirao Phule (Jyotiba). 

According to a piece published in Oikos Worldviews Journal titled as , ‘Savitribai and India’s Conversation on Education’, it was stated that “If you are an educated Indian woman then you owe her. If you are an Indian schoolgirl reading this chapter in English then you owe her. If you are an educated international indian woman then you owe her."

Savitribai Phule is recognised as India’s first female teacher & she also opened the 1st school for girls in India.

Savitribai Jyotirao Phule was a prominent Indian social reformer, educationist and poet who championed the cause of women’s education and empowerment in the 18th century. 

Savitribai was born on January 3, 1831, in Naigaon village in Maharashtra. Savitribai Phule was married off to 13-year-old Jyotirao Phule at the tender age of nine in-keeping with the tradition at the time of marrying off girls before they hit puberty.

Jyotirao had studied the Hindu scriptures and come to the conclusion that all humans were equal. He realized that education was the one tool that if provided to all humans, would get rid of all social inequalities. He watched how 'untouchables' were not allowed to pollute’ others with their long shadows in the mornings and evening and how they had to tie a broom behind their backs to sweep the very street they had walked on. He saw in particular how young widows whose old husbands had died had to get their heads shaved and refrain from any kind of beautification or pleasure in life.

He also saw how 'untouchable' women were made to dance naked as the very status of women was reduced to a pleasure-object of men.

Observing all these societal evils that furthered inequality, Jyotirao took the decision to educate women. But how would he do this? He knew he needed other women to help train female teachers for girls. He decided to start with his wife.

Savitribai was illiterate when she married to Jyotirao at the tender age of nine. jyotirao decided to start this revolution at home by teaching his wife to read and write, much against the family will. Initially, he taught her when she brought lunch for him in the field.

Later, Jyotiba admitted Savitribai to a teachers’ training Institute in Pune. She passed with flying colours along. After the training, Savitribai started teaching girls at Maharwada in Pune and later started their own school at Bhide Wada, which became India’s first girl’s school run by Indians. The school started with the nine girls, but the number increased to 25 gradually. Later, three more schools were opened for girls in Pune, with nearly 150 students altogether. 

You might wonder the Right to Education Act, midday meal schemes are a modern-day concept but Savitribai Phule and Jotiba Phule set the stage for it almost 170 years back by giving stipends to children to reduce the dropout rate in schools. They took initiatives to reduce malnutrition in children by taking care of the health of each and every child in school.

By 1851, Phule had set up three schools and was the teacher of 150 students. She would go on to established 17 schools in the country and although most of them were for upper-caste ,Dalit and lower-caste women.

Savitribai Phule and Jotiba Phule’s work of educating girls infuriated many Brahmins of that time and because of the fears of attacks from orthodox Brahmins, Jyotiba Phule’s father was afraid. In 1849, both Savitribai Phule and Jotiba Phule were thrown out of their home.

Going to the girls’ school to teach became a huge deal for Savitribai. She faced innumerable abuses by Groups of orthodox men followed her on her way to work. They threw rotten eggs, cow dung, tomatoes and stones. They abused her in obscene language.

Retired academician Lalitha Dhara who has authored a number of books on the Phules and Dr Ambedkar writes: She would stop by and politely tell them, "My brothers, I am doing the noble job of educating your sisters. The cow dung and stones that you are pelting on me are not a deterrent but rather an inspiration for me. It is as if you are showering petals on me. While I vow to serve my sisters, I also pray, 'May God bless you.'"

Once she couldn’t take it anymore and decided to give up. But her husband convinced her to stay strong.

He gave her two sarees a course one to wear on the way to work which would be soiled by the garbage thrown at her; and another fresh saree to change into before she started work when she reached the school.

While returning, she could change into the same course saree to again take the filth from society.

However, this public hooliganism stopped one day after Savitribai slapped a trouble monger and this act of her became sensational news across Pune.

Her efforts didn’t go unnoticed. She was declared to be the best teacher in the state by the British government in 1852. She received further praise from the government in 1853 for her work in the field of education.

Savitribai was instrumental in shaping Satyashodhak Samaj, The Truthseeker’s Society, a brainchild of Jyotirao’s. The Samaj primarily aimed at eliminating discrimination and the need for social order. In 1873, Savitribai started the practice of Satyashodhak Marriage, where couples took an oath of education and equality.

Savitribai opposed several of the then-prevalent societal evils like child marriage, sati, untouchability, gender and caste-based discrimination and advocated for widow remarriage and intercaste marriages. Savitribai and Jyotirao Phule set up the ‘Balhatya Pratibandhak Griha’, an open care centre for children of rape victims, victims who escaped female infanticide and sati. The couple also organized the first-of-its-kind barbers strike after castigating them for shaving the heads of young widows. As an example against the evil of untouchability, they also opened up their own water reservoir for everyone.

Savitribai and Jyotirao had no children of their own but they adopted Yashavantrao, a son born to a widowed Brahmin.

In 1890, Jyotirao passed away.

“When Jyotiba died there was an argument about who would light the pyre, between the adopted son and the family member. While the argument was going on, she (Savitribai) took up the fire and lit the pyre on her own. That is why I feel she deserves the name, Kranti Jyoti," says Cynthia Stephen, a Bengaluru-based independent writer, researcher and activist.

Defying all social norms, She carried on Jyotirao’s legacy and took over the reigns of Satyashodhak Samaj.

During the bubonic plague in 1897, Savitribai Phule and her adopted son, Yashwant, opened a clinic to treat those affected by the disease.While carrying a 10-year-old plague victim to the clinic in her arms, she contracted the disease herself. On March 10, 1897, Savitribai Phule breathed her last.

Her life and work is a testament to social reform and female empowerment in Indian society. She remains an inspiration for many women rights’ activists in modern times.