Savitribai Phule – UPSC GS1

  • Savitribai was among the country’s first women to speak up for the rights of women.
  • She was the first woman teacher of the first women’s school in India and also a first pioneer in modern Marathi poetry.
  • She was married at the age of nine to the 13-year old Jyotirao Phule.
  • She was home taught to read and write by her husband.
  • Later the couple founded India’s first school for girls and women in Bhidewada, Pune (Maharashtra).
  • It started with just nine girls from different castes enrolled as students – but it became a historic step when female education was considered taboo in the orthodox Indian society prevalent then.
  • During the British rule in India, the Phule couple had launched a crusade against social discrimination based on caste and gender, and also had sparked the flame for women’s equal rights.
  • During this highly patriarchal and orthodox Indian society when women had no say in anything, Savitribai’s courageous campaign covered social issues such as child marriages, child widows, practice of ‘Sati’, women education and fighting for equal rights for all women.
  • Even after death of Jyotirao Phule in 1890, she carried on legacy of his Satyashodhak.
  • She died while serving people suffering from bubonic plague in Maharashtra in 1897.

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