TBT: Savitribai Phule – India’s First Female Teacher

TBT: Super Awesome People™ in History.

“Savitribai Phule, the Mother of modern education. If you are an Indian woman who reads, you owe her. If you are an educated Indian woman, you owe her. If you are an Indian schoolgirl reading this chapter in English, you owe her. If you are an educated international desi woman, you owe her.”

Thom Wolf and Suzana Andrade (Savitribai and India’s Conversation on Education)

Educator. Social reformer. Feminist writer. Philanthropist. Poet.

Savitribai Phule was born on January 3, 1831, in Maharashtra, India, to parents in the Mali community (an Other Backward Caste, OBC) of cultivators who specialized in horticulture. At the time, there were few literate women in India, and Savitribai received no education until after she married her husband, Jyotirao Phule, at the age of 9 (he was 13). Jyotirao began teaching her to read and write at home, and Savitribai later enrolled in two teacher’s training programs, one run by an American missionary, and one at a Normal School. She became certified in 1847 and is widely regarded as India’s first female teacher.

  • Savitribai Phule Commemorative Stamp (India Post, Government of India)
  • Savitribai Phule (by artist Malvika Raj)

Because Jyotiaro and Savitribai wanted to open a school for girls, they were kicked out of their house by Jyotiaro’s father who viewed their efforts to educate women and the lower castes as a sin to the conservative Brahmanical texts. And yet the couple were undeterred, and in 1848, they opened a school for girls when Jyotiaro was 21-years-old and Savitribai was only 17. It was India’s first school for girls started by Indians, making Savitribai India’s first female headmistress.

“Awake, arise and educate, smash traditions—liberate.”

Savitribai Phule

Eight girls from different castes initially enrolled in the Phules’ school where they were taught Western subjects like mathematics, science, and social studies, rather than Brahmanical texts. There were many conservatives who were outspoken against Savitribai’s role as an educator, and she was so often pelted with stones, mud, and dung on her way to the school that she carried a second sari to change into if her first one became soiled. By 1851, Savitribai was the headmistress of three school for girls with around 150 students. She taught alongside Sagunabai, Jyotiaro’s feminist aunt (who was educated by her nephew), and Fatima Begum Sheikh who is considered India’s first Muslim woman teacher.

In total, the Phules set up two educational trusts (“Society for Promoting the Education of Mahars, Mangs, and Etceteras” and the “Native Female School”) and established 18 schools, but their social justice work went beyond the education of women, the Other Backward Castes, and the “untouchable” Dalits. In 1852, Savitribai started a women’s rights organization called Mahila Seva Mandal and organized a successful barbers strike against the practice of shaving the heads of widows. The Phules also established the Balhatya Pratibandhak Griha (“Child-Killing Prohibition Home”) to provide refuge and support for widows who were victims of rape and who conceived outside of marriage. Pregnant widows were outcasts who were often murdered, or who would commit suicide or infanticide against their unwanted children. The Phules helped these widows deliver their babies and start new lives, and they even adopted Yeshwant, the abandoned son of a widow, as they had no biological children of their own.

In 1873, Jyotiaro founded Satyashodhak Samaj, a social reform society to increase the rights of underprivileged groups. The Phules supported inter-caste marriage, and Savitribai initiated the first “Satyashodhak” marriage that year, which was an inexpensive “no-dowry marriage conducted without any Brahmin priest or Brahminical rituals.” Savitribai was also a writer and poet who used her writings to encourage Dalits and OBCs to get educated and expressed the importance of learning English as a way to emancipate the lower castes. She published two books of poetry Kavya Phule (1854) and Bavan Kashi Subodh Ratnakar (1892). She also compiled and edited a volume of Jyotirao’s speeches, letters she wrote to her husband, and a collection of her own speeches.

Jyotirao died in 1890, and as relatives fought over who would lead his funeral procession (traditionally the right of a male successor), Savitribai took the titve (funeral mud-pot) and led the procession herself. The act was taboo, and it may have been the first time a woman performed the death rights in the history of India. Savitribai took over the Satyashodhak movement and led it until her death, including acting as chairperson of the Satyashodhak Conference in 1893. In 1897, the Third Pandemic of the bubonic plague struck Maharashtra, and Savitribai and her adopted son Yeshwant helped establish a hospital and worked to provide relief to the afflicted. During her humanitarian efforts, Savitribai contracted the plague and died on March 10, 1897.

“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.”

Savitribai Phule ("Go, Get Education")

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