Savitribai Phule

Savitribai Phule

Savitribai Phule was an Indian social reformer, educationalist, and poet from Maharashtra. Along with her husband, Jyotirao Phule, she played an important and vital role in improving women’s rights in India. She worked to abolish the discrimination and unfair treatment of people based on caste and gender.

About Savitribai Phule in brief

Summary Savitribai PhuleSavitribai Phule was an Indian social reformer, educationalist, and poet from Maharashtra. Along with her husband, Jyotirao Phule, she played an important and vital role in improving women’s rights in India. Phule and her husband founded one of the first Indian girls’ school in Pune, at Bhide wada in 1848. She worked to abolish the 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. A philanthropist and an educationist, Phules was also a prolific Marathi writer. Her birthdate, i. e. 3 January, is celebrated as Balika Din in the whole of Maharashtra, especially in Girl’s Schools. Given her training, Savitriba may have been the firstIndian woman teacher and headmistress.

She was the eldest daughter of Lakshmi and Khandoji Nevase Patil, both of whom belonged to the Mali Community. The Phules faced such strong opposition because of the conservative and marginalized caste to which they belonged. For this reason, many Brahmins began to oppose their work and labeled it as ‘evil’. This uproar was always instigated by the upper castes of the upper 18th century. The couple had no children of their own. It is said that they adopted Yashawantrao, a son born to a Brahmin widow, but there is no original evidence available yet to support this. Up until the end of 1849, the Phules were living at Jyotsirao’s home, the family of one of JyOTirao’s friends, Usman Sheikh.