16>||SAVITRI BAI PHULE:----( 03/01/1831 to 10/03/1897 )

16>||SAVITRI BAI PHULE:----------------------

( 03/01/1831 to 10/03/1897 )
She was an Indian social reformat and poet.
She along with her husband JYOTIRAO PHULE, played and an important role inproving woman's right in India during British rule.
She founded the first Girl's School in PUNE run by native Indians ar BHIDE WADA in 1848.
She is the country's first woman Teacher.
At a time when grievances of woman could hardly be heard, she broke all the traditional stereotypes of the 19 th century to boost anew age of thinking in British colonised India.
Today is the Birthday of social reformer and educationist Savitribai Phule. She, along with her husband opened girls school in Pune in 1848. Very interestingly, she started the school with her close associate Fatema Seikh. The school was also a bold statement against communal and casteist thought process.

Phule started teaching when she was just 17! It was not easy that time. She also led a movement against the practise of shaving heads of the widows. Shaving of head was a traumatic experience for the widows, especially the ones who even did not cross their teens. Savitribai stood against this age old custom. She also opened a Center to take care of the rape pregnants who had nowhere to go. How unimaginable and inspiring, even for today! Her fight against cast discrimination and violence has inspired many generation after generations.

The Phule couple also organised marriages without a priest, without dowry, and at a minimum cost. What a revolutionary idea. How many of you reading this post will be ready to marry without a priest even today? She also practised what she preached. Her son's marriage was an inter-caste marriage. It seems unimaginable that she was in this land where even after 200 years people kill their own kids for inter-caste marriage!

Even her death is a saga of sacrifice. During a plague epidemic, she opened a shelter in which her adopted son was treating the patients while she took the role of the nurse. She caught plague while nursing plague victims and succumbed. What a humbling life, what an inspiring death!!!

What we learn from the lives of all these great people is that everything old is not gold. We need to test all the prevailing customs before accepting them. Fighting against so called tradition and culture is essential to take the society ahead.
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