Savitribai Phule: Empowers Today's Women
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AEGAEUM JOURNAL ISSN NO: 0776-3808 Savitribai Phule: Empowers today’s women Dr. BeenaIndrani Former Guest Faculty, Department of Education, University of Allahabad, Prayagraj, U.P. (India) Email Id: [email protected] ABSTRACT SavitribaiPhule may not be as famous as Mahatma Gandhi or Tagore or Vivekanand. But her impact on the liberation of the Indian woman has been no less significant. One of the earliest crusaders of education for girls, and dignity for the most vulnerable sections of society- dalit, women and widows. She broke all the traditional shackles and stereotypes of 19 th century India to boost a new age of thinking in British colonised India. She can be legitimately called as the mother of Indian Feminism. She was the first female teacher of the first women's school in India. She is India's first modern feminist and well known social reformer who along with her husband JyotiraoPhule. Both had played a vital role in raising the human rights in India during the British Rule. At a time, when India was plagued with women’s outraged modesty. She acted as a Messiah for all those who were living a life of slavery. During a time when women were mere objects, she ignited a spark that led to equality in education which was impossible before. SavitribaiPhule is a name that everyone needs to know and understand their thoughts today. Her ideas are relevant and useful even today, despite the British era. Here in this paper, an attempt has been made to explain why she is called the mother of modern girls' education, how her thoughts can play their role in the women empowerment? How she is an educational pragmatist? and in the end it is told how her initiatives have influenced the modern education system even today. Keywords: • Mother of modern girls’ education • Role in women’s empowerment • An educational pragmatist • Her initiatives inspire the modern education system Volume 8, Issue 9, 2020 http://aegaeum.com/ Page No: 682 AEGAEUM JOURNAL ISSN NO: 0776-3808 Introduction : The people in many parts of the country, especially women, and students in universities observed the 187th birth anniversary of SavitribaiPhule on January 03. Though late in getting a due place in history, people from all sections have recognizing her contribution to the progress of human society. As a visionary of social democracy, her thoughts and actions were much ahead of her time and are still relevant after 200 years. Today after 69 years of constitutional governance, we have developed a series of laws, institutional mechanism and host of programmesfor realization of rights, participation and development of the most marginalized sections but still we fondly remember her to emotionally inspire us. In the past, education was open for all but as time progressed and kings changed, education became caste based. The Hindu Caste System was based on duties were inherited from their ancestors. Religion played an imperative part in life India. During the ancient time education was given only to males. JyotiraoPhule strongly opposed the gender inequality that was passed on from the past. He was also the founder of movement of women’s education. When we talk about the education of girls, first comes the name ofJyotiraoPhule, who can be called the champion of girls' education in India. He first started girls' education by teaching his wife.He opened the first school for girls in 1848 with his wife SavitribaiPhule. SavitribaiPhule may not be as famous as Mahatma Gandhi or Tagore or Vivekanand. But her impact on the liberation of the Indian woman has been no less significant. One of the earliest crusaders of education for girls, and dignity for the most vulnerable sections of society- dalit, women and widows. She broke all the traditional shackles and stereotypes of 19 th century India to boost a new age of thinking in British colonised India. She can be legitimately called as the mother of Indian Feminism. At the time when girls were kept inside the boundary wall, they took the first step towardsa new way of thinking. In this paper authors have given a little introduction about SavitribaiPhule, which according to us can be considered as the first step for girls' education. She is known se modern India's first women teacher, a radical exponent of mass and female education, a champion of women's liberation and a courageous mass leader lady who took on the forces of caste and patriarchy. She dared to pursue the noble profession of teaching Volume 8, Issue 9, 2020 http://aegaeum.com/ Page No: 683 AEGAEUM JOURNAL ISSN NO: 0776-3808 in the ‘Dark Age' and became first lady teacher in India. This is the supreme name who started first school for females in India. The first women teacher and the first female educationist of India was also the first female poetess . Her two books of poetry ‘ KavyaPhule' (1934) and ‘Bhavan Kashi SubodhRatnakar' (1982) continue to inspire us today with their questions on caste and gender. ‘KavyaPhule' was published when she was just 23. She also wrote a poem entitled ‘Go, Get Education which encouraged people to free themselves from oppression by educating themselves. SavitribaiPhule is a name that everyone needs to know and understand their thoughts today. Her ideas are relevant and useful even today, despite the British era. Here in this paper, an attempt has been made to explain why she is called the mother of modern girls' education, how her thoughts can play their role in the women empowerment? How she is an educational pragmatist? and in the end it is told how her initiatives have influenced the modern education system even today. Mother of Modern Girls' Education : We can say that she was one of the earlier crusaders of education for girls. Impressed by her thirst for learning, Savitribai Phil’s husband JyotiraoPhule, taught her to read and write. Becoming fond of teaching, she trained at Ms. Farar'sInstitution in Ahmednagar and in Ms. Mitchell's school in Pune to become the first female teacher. She inspired young girls of her time to pursue education. During that time when the rights of women were almost non-existent, she along with her husband, started the first women’s school in 1848 at Bhide Wada in Pune. That school had only eight girls belonging to different castes. At that time, education for girls was considered a sin, and on her way to school, she was routinely harassed by Orthodox men. These Orthodox mens, who threw stones, mud, rotten eggs, tomatoes, cow- dung and dirt at her. She even carried an extra sari with her due to this issue. In the year 1848, she also founded other schools for women. For her, educationwas not simply alphabetical learning, but rather an evolution of mind itself. She wanted the girls to not only learn to read and write but also develop their mental level. Her innovative ideas also started influencing people and girls. Her innovative methods of teaching slowly attached the common people. As a result of this, in 1849-50 the number of girls in the school increased significantly (25-70). Volume 8, Issue 9, 2020 http://aegaeum.com/ Page No: 684 AEGAEUM JOURNAL ISSN NO: 0776-3808 She was running three schools with around 150 students. She gave stipends to prevent children from dropping out of school. She is also to have inspired a young student to ask for a library for the school at an award ceremony instead of girls for herself. She inspired the young girls to take up painting, writing and other activities. An essay written by young girl, Mukta, at that time become the face of Dalit literature. As a token of honour, on March 10, 1998, a stamp of SavitribaiPhule was released by India Post. In 2015, as a tribute for her contribution in the field of education, the university of Pune was renamed as SavitribaiPhule Pune University. Her life was full of hurdles, but she overcame them with her goal to educate girls. We can refer her to as “Mother of modern education system”. Role in Women's empowerment : She is India's first modern feminist and well known social reformer who along with her husband JyotiraoPhule. Both had played a vital role in raising the human rights in India during the British Rule. At a time, when India was plagued with women’s outraged modesty. She acted as a Messiah for all those who were living a life of slavery. During a time when women were mere objects, she ignited a spark that led to equality in education which was impossible before. She was the first female teacher of the first women's school in India. She opened a school in year of 1852, which was opened for untouchable girls. She was a prominent Indian social reformer, educationist and poet who championed the cause of women’s education and empowerment in the 19 th century. Savitribai opposed several societal evils like child-marriage, sati-pratha, untouchability, gender and caste-based discrimination and advocated for widow-remarriage and inter-caste marriages. She strongly spoke against the discrimination boundaries imposed on women, which led to their oppression. Her emphasis on secular education for social emancipation in India is marker of her significant personality. SavitribaiPhule, who dared to pursue the noble profession of teaching in the ‘Dark Age'. The time when women were mere objects to be used, education for women was considered no less than a punishable crime; she dared to speak against the unpardonable boundaries imposed on women in Indian society. She ignited million lives, for which today’s women and everyone should be grateful to her.