Savitribai Phule: Pioneer of women education

 

 Joytirao Phule exposed Savitribai to different ideas and alternative worldviews. Jotiba firmly believed that all institutions, religions and traditions need to be subjected to discussion and criticism. Savitribai must have been impressed by Jotiba’s firm stance when he refuted his family’s immense pressure to remarry on account of the couple’s childlessness. He instead questioned them as to why only men, and not women, were allowed to remarry due to childlessness. Why would Savitribai be not allowed to remarry instead of Jotiba, her remarked? This illustrates that Jotiba not just understood radical ideas but was also an active practitioner. All these things must have hugely impacted Savitribai, and would have probably motivated her to further understand the dynamics of religion, gender, caste, and marginalization.

The next challenge Savitribai faced was when Jotiba decided to open girl’s school at Pune in 1848. One of the first of this kind, this school primarily meant for lower caste girls was started by Jotiba with the help of his Pune based Brahmin friend, Tatyasaheb Bhide, who provided his house space for the school premises. The establishment of this school irked many conservative Brahmins and they pressurized Govindrao, Jotiba’s father to act upon his son’s supposed sacrilege. As a result, Jotiba and Savitribai were thrown out of the house by Govindrao, which exposed them to vulnerable condition of poverty. The Bombay Guardian, in 1851 while felicitating Jotiba’s contribution to the cause of education, carried a heart-wrenching story for the first time, regarding the crisis which deeply shook the Phule couple in 1848. Within few years, Jotiba himself testified how he was compelled to work as a teacher on salary in a missionary school to sustain his family (Bombay Guardian, 16th December 1853). It was here that Savitribai rose to the occasion and played a pivotal role that changed the course of educational activism in western India. At the time of this crisis overwhelmed with acute scarcity of resources, Jotiba decided to appoint Savitribai as a teacher at his newly founded school while he worked elsewhere for the livelihood.

Savitribai took keen interest not only in teaching her students but also extensively campaigning for the propagation of education for women and lower castes. Due to an active involvement of Savitribai along with the continuous help from their friends, Jotiba, who was now instilled with new confidence, started yet another school for girls in 1851. It was situated at Hari Raoji Chiplunkar’s house in Budhwar Peth, a hustling marketplace of the city. Chiplunkar, a progressive Brahmin was closely associated with Phule s activism, and in the later years, became a prominent activist of the Satyashodhak Samaj. The school that started with 8 students at Chiplunkar’s house eventually increased its capacity to 48. Savitribai was the Head Master of this school. Her contribution was duly acknowledged by the Bombay government with glowing tributes: “Savitribai the School Mistress has nobly volunteered to devote herself to improvement of female education without any remuneration. We hope that as the knowledge advances the people of this country will be awakened to the advantages of the female education and they will cordially assist in all such plans as are calculated to improve the condition of those who have hitherto been unaccountably neglected….”