Jayanti Special Savitribai Phule: The pride of India which changed the direction of the society..!
Savitribai Phule was such a person who took a vow to educate girls despite the opposition to the education of girls by society. He was born on 3 January 1831 at Naigaon in the Satara district of Maharashtra. Savitribai Phule is one such person who not only fought for women’s education but also established a girl’s school for her for the first time.
Education not only develops the personality of a person but also brings him out of the deep vortex of old and orthodox beliefs towards the light. In the case of women, education did the same thing, not only liberating them from the shackles of old stereotypes but also giving them an open sky.
Where Savitribai Phule could fill the flight of her dreams. Before the nineteenth century, female education was restricted in our society, which was given a little education, its main focus was family and skill in cooking.
More than this, there was no practice of female education in society. Most of the women in the society were bound by the evils of child marriage, opposition to widow remarriage, illiteracy and superstition. It can be said that the voice of female consciousness in Indian society starts coming from the reformist movement of the nineteenth century.
Jayanti Special Savitri Bai Phule: Changing India and changes taking place in society
After the revolution of 1857, a new period came which was called the Renaissance and Reformation period in literature. The wave of reformist movement emerges in this period.
Many women and men reformers emerge in this reformist wave. Those who raised the demands like widow remarriage, polygamy, opposition to the practice of Sati, constitutional right of women’s education.
These reformist movements were started by male thinkers and the work of carrying them forward was done by women reformers. Raja Rammohan Roy opposed the evils like child marriage, sati system, casteism, rituals, purdah system and founded the Brahmo Samaj on 20 August 1828.
Ishwar Chand Vidyasagar raised the issue of widow remarriage and proved the facts of its correctness through his book ‘Satyarth Prakash’.
Swami Dayanand Saraswati emphasized women’s education and believed that women’s awakening and consciousness are not possible in the absence of women’s education because education moulds their personality. Swami Dayanand Saraswati, the founder of Arya Samaj, opposed polygamy.
Swami Vivekananda founded the Ramakrishna Paramhansa Mission. He opposed the evaluation of women based on western norms.
He was in favour of women’s education, but only the education through which he could fulfil his duties towards India well and could carry forward the tradition of great ladies of India like Sanghamitra, Leela, Ahilyabai, Meerabai etc. and became brave maternity.
Can you ‘Govind Ranade’ founded Prarthana Samaj, he raises the issue of child marriage, women’s education, widow remarriage and women’s rights in Maharashtra.
While the credit for the early phase of the movement is given to the male reformers, women were also actively participating in it.
Most of which were ignored. Savitribai Phule was the first female teacher of that era who worked for the education of girls. He was born on 3 January 1831 at Naigaon in the Satara district of Maharashtra. She got married at the age of nine, and by the age of 18, she had started teaching girls and was serving her role in girls’ schools as a teacher and lecturer.
She was a determined teacher as well as a social reformer and also a poet at the personal level. Savitribai Phule was such a person who took a vow to educate girls despite the opposition to the education of girls by society.
In her poems ‘Ignorance’, ‘Get up for education, ‘Best money’, ‘English maya’, ‘read English’, ‘Poem of group dialogue’ etc., the voice of women’s education emerges strongly. ‘Vidya is the true wealth / above all wealth / the one who has the store of knowledge / is in the eyes of the truly wise people.
Savitribai Phule, Pride of India
Savitribai Phule, being a woman, knew the reasons for the opposition to women’s education in the society, first her social conservative environment which had the mentality of keeping her slaves so that girls could not oppose the anti-women practices by becoming conscious of education and secondly girls had his own family.
After the parents in the family, the daughter is the only helper in all the household chores.
Every child younger than himself in the house has a second mother. In such a situation, his parents considered his education useless for him. He didn’t want to let that laborious hand go down. And this thinking of them limits the girls to the house.
In such a situation, it was a challenging task in front of Savitribai Phule to make the girls of their environment and their parents aware of education.
And Savitribai Phule accepts this challenge, addressing all the women as Sakhi, saying that ‘To live with self-respect / Study the school / The true jewel of human beings is education / Let’s go to school. / The first task is to study, Then if you get time, you get time from sports/studies, then do the cleaning of the house / Come on, now go to school.
In this way, Savitribai Phule had started an awareness campaign among women for their education.
Savitribai Phule strengthened women’s education by moving beyond the daily social humiliation in her life. She opened the first girls’ school in Pune on 1 January 1848 in collaboration with Jyotiba Phule. This school became the first pillar of the revolution of women’s education.
Pramila Dandawate, in her article on ‘Savitribai Phule’ on International Women’s Day, says that the year of 1848 was a time of revolution in two respects: “Firstly, that year Marx and Engels published the Communist Manifesto, which spread all over the world and inspired millions of oppressed and oppressed people around the world to change their destiny; And second, Savitri Bai Phule, the mother of the social revolution started in Pune city of Maharashtra state, laid the foundation of the first women’s school, despite fierce opposition from the orthodoxy and the scarce obstacles put by them.
This sequence of girls’ education emerges as an example with the opening of 18 girls’ schools. She also opened an adult education centre in Poona in 1849 for girls’ education as well as women’s education. She was a strong supporter of women’s development through education.
Not only this, he saw and understood the pathetic condition of child widows who became pregnant due to sexual abuse which was consumed by society and left to commit suicide. A maternity home was opened for these women of the society and it was named ‘Balhatya Prabandhak Griha’. Savitribai Phule was working for women’s education in such a conservative environment.
Today women are ahead in every field and are registering their presence in society by moving ahead and this has been possible only through education.
Education gave women their rights and raised the spirits for their protection.
But ever thought that when and how did the struggle for the education which she considers her right today start?
And who were they who made women’s education their right?
Savitribai Phule is one such person who not only fought for women’s education but also established a girl’s school for her for the first time.
Savitribai Phule was the first woman to be a girl’s teacher and also the founder of their school. Today is January 3 and today is the birthday of Savitribai Phule, the first teacher to promote women’s education, who worked for women, education and awakening.