Savitribai Phule

Savitribai Phule
Born 3 January 1831, Naigaon, Maharashtra, British India
Died 10 March 1897
Nationality Indian
Spouse(s) Jyotirao Phule

Savitribai Jyotirao Phule (3 January 1831 – 10 March 1897) was an Indian social reformer and poet. Along with her husband, Jyotirao Phule, she played an important role in improving women's rights in India during British rule. The couple founded the first women's school at Bhide Wada in Pune in 1848.[1] She also worked to abolish discrimination and unfair treatment of people based on caste and gender. She is regarded as an important figure of the Social Reform Movement in Maharashtra.

Early life

Savitribai Phule was born in 1831 in Naigaon, Maharashtra. Her family were farmers.[2] At the age of nine, she was married to twelve-year-old Jyotirao Phule in 1840. Savitribai and Jyotirao had no children of their own. However, the couple adopted Yashavantrao, who was the son of a widowed Brahmin.[3]

Career as a social reformer

Statue of Savitribai Phule and her husband, Jyotirao Phule

Savitribai was taught to read and write by her husband, jyotirao. As one of the very few indigenous literate women of the time, she played a full part in her husband's social reform movement by becoming a teacher at the schools he started for girls and later for the so called untouchables in Pune. For this task, she had to endure a lot of abuse at the hands of the orthodox society of Pune. The couple were felicitated by the then colonial government of Bombay Presidency in 1850s for this work.

During the 19th century, arranged marriages before the age of maturity was the norm in the Hindu society of Maharashtra. Since mortality rates were high, many young girls often became widows even before attaining maturity. Due to social and cultural practices of the times, widow remarriage was out of question in many upper castes and therefore prospects for the young widows from those castes were poor. The 1881 Kolhapur gazetteer records that widows at that time used to shave their heads, and wear simple red saris and had to lead a very austere life with little joy.[4] Despite being required to look austere, the young widows often used to become targets of lust by men and become pregnant. Upon being found out, the widows used to be thrown out of home by their families. To help these women, Savitribai and Jyotirao started a home for widows. Their adopted son, Yashwant was born to a brahmin widow.

Tiffany Wayne has described Phule as "one of the first-generation modern Indian feminists, and an important contributor to world feminism in general, as she was both addressing and challenging not simply the question of gender in isolation but also issues related to caste and casteist patriarchy."[2]

Death

Bust of Savitri Phule in the grounds of Pune Municipal Corporation

Savitribai Phule and her adopted son, Yashwant, opened a clinic to treat those affected by the worldwide Third Pandemic of the bubonic plague when it appeared in the area around Pune in 1897. The clinic was established at Sasane Mala, Hadapsar, near Pune, but out of the city in an area free of infection. Savitribai personally took patients to the clinic where her son treated them. While caring for the patients, she contracted the disease herself. She died from it on 10 March 1897 while serving a plague patient.

Legacy

Poems

Savitribai Phule wrote many poems against discrimination and advised to get educated.

Go, Get Education

Be self-reliant, be industrious

Work, gather wisdom and riches,

All gets lost without knowledge

We become animal without wisdom,

Sit idle no more, go, get education

End misery of the oppressed and forsaken,

You’ve got a golden chance to learn

So learn and break the chains of caste.

Throw away the Brahman’s scriptures fast.

References

  1. ↑ Mariam Dhawale. "AIDWA Observes Savitribai Phule Birth Anniversary". Retrieved 3 March 2014.
  2. 1 2 Wayne, Tiffany K., ed. (2011). Feminist Writings from Ancient Times to the Modern World: A Global Sourcebook and History. ABC-CLIO. p. 243. ISBN 978-0-31334-581-4.
  3. ↑ O'Hanlon, Rosalind (2002). Caste, Conflict and Ideology: Mahatma Jotirao Phule and Low Caste Protest in Nineteenth-Century Western India (Revised ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 135. ISBN 978-0-52152-308-0.
  4. ↑ Government of Maharashtra (1886), "People", in Campbell, James M., Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency: Kolhapur District, XXIV, Government of Maharashtra, retrieved 10 October 2010
  5. ↑ Kothari, Vishwas (8 July 2014). "Pune university to be renamed after Savitribai Phule". Times of India. Retrieved 10 July 2014.
  6. ↑ http://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/cong-mp-seeks-bharat-ratna-for-jyotirao-phule-wife-115032001175_1.html. Missing or empty |title= (help)

Further reading

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