Teacher Thinker Truthseeker

Savitribhai Phule

3 January 1831 – 10 March 1897

Savitribai Phule  was an Indian social reformer, educationalist, and poet from Maharashtra. She is regarded as the first female teacher of India. Along with her husband, Jyotirao Phule. she played an important and vital role in improving women’s rights in India. She is regarded as the mother of Indian feminism.

Schools For Girls – :

In 1848, the Phules opened a school Bhindewada, Poona, with nine GIRLS. Savitri and Fatima were the teachers and Savitri was also the headmistress. She was seventeen years old at the time.

For Society – Savitri started a woman’s association called Mahila Seva Mandal in 1852. She educated women about their rights as humans, and gave lectures to raise people’s awareness of the plight of women and the unfair treatment many of them received. At this time, widows were considered impure, and treated as social outcastes. Since child marriage was common, many widow were young girls destined to spend their entire lives in austerity, in thankless service of others. Widows were sometimes forced into abusive relationships and abandoned when they became pregnant. The fate of such widows and the children born to them, was unimaginably heartbreaking.

Savitri established a shelter in her own house for pregnant widows. She looked after them, assisted them with the delivery and even brought up their children. She encouraged widows to remarry and organized a barbers  strike against the terribly humiliating custom of shaving the heads of widows. When famine struck Maharashtra in 1896, Savitribai raised money, organized supplies, and assisted the affected farmers, along with satyashodhak volunteers. She established hostels for children orphaned by the famine and fed thousands of people. 

She was a great woman, We can do everything. So, Never give up, You can  do, Start your life NOW.

0016 Great Woman