Wrapped in our centuries-old history lie micro-histories with stories that inspire; enveloped within those stories are layers of micro-stories which broaden understanding. When Gail Omvedt, undoubtedly one of modern India’s finest historians was unraveling layers of anti-caste movements, she wrote ‘Seeking Begumpura’ devoting an entire chapter of 25 pages to Jotirao Phule. It was titled ‘Remembering the Kingdom of Bali’. In it, she had only one sentence for his wife, Savitribai: “In 1849 and 1851 he founded schools for girls and untouchables with his wife Savitribai among the teachers.

A couple of schools at the beginning led to several more and to an association.” While Jotirao had identified Brahmins as the main obstacle in the way of education and development of sudras and ati shudras, it was Savitribai and her teacher-colleagues Fatima Sheikh and Sagunabai Kshirsagar who made Jotirao’s dream of establishing schools for girls’ education a reality. Jotirao, Omvedt explained, was named not after the lamp (Jyoti) but after the popular folk deity (Joti) in Maharashtra who is indeed a symbol of the peasantry: another story to light up the world of oppressed castes. In fact Phule’s anti-caste fervour, his growing number of village-level achievements even in the 1840s and 1850s overshadowed the sweat, toil and work of both Savitribai and Fatima Sheikh. It is also a pointer to the humility of the two teachers who rarely, if ever, sought to be in the public eye. By the time the stellar contributions of Savitribai became known, she was being hailed as the ‘first woman teacher’ who championed the cause of women’s education and the rights of sudras to be educated. Fatima Sheikh still remained in the background.

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If we fast track to independent India, today there were educational institutes, scholarships and awards named after Savitribai Phule and as recently as 2014, the University of Pune was named after her. Politicians from across the spectrum are quick to say: “We are the sons and daughters of Savitribai Phule.” However, thanks to painstaking research of several Marathi-Telugu-Urdu scholars, Fatima Sheikh’s collaboration and friendship with both Savitribai and Jyotirao (Joti gets morphed into Jyotirao for the English-speaking world) is now known to the world. It is Fatima’s turn to be hailed as the ‘first Muslim woman teacher’. In her book ‘Savitribai Phule ~ Her life, her relationships, her legacy’, Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta recreated the challenging times, dramatising life-stories of Jyotirao, Savitribai and Fatima for readers to empathise with causes being upheld in the 1840s and 1850s. In the section ‘The Spark’, Reeta provided a brief biography: “Among Savitribai’s various collaborators, the most information is available about Fatima Sheikh. Here’s her story: Fatima’s family migrated from Uttar Pradesh to Maharashtra (loosely the western region of India that was Marathi-speaking).

Her family members were handloom textile merchants. When Fatima was barely seven years old, the family moved to Poona from Malegaon owing to the crisis that arose in the handloom textile business and a drought that hit the region. When her parents died early, her brother Usman Sheikh Pinjara became her guardian. The young siblings settled in the Ganzpet area in Poona city, and Munshi Gafar Baig (or Baig Sahab), an Urdu and Persian scholar, stood as a father figure to them. Over time, Usman became a successful trader. With her brother being in the garment trade, Fatima learnt kashidakari (embroidery) and tailoring, and taught young girls in her house.

“She met Savitri Phule at Mrs Mitchell’s school in Poona, where they both took lessons in English. Savitri had never met anyone like Fatima, a very well read girl in her own right. She could quote Urdu poetry at will and was an avid reader of Persian. They formed a unique friendship, and Fatima supported the implementation of Savitri’s fiery crusade to change the lot of girls and women in society. Scholar Dr Shamsuddin Tamboli and author Dinakar Vishnu Kakade believe Fatima Sheikh got married; Jyotirao and Savitri gave her away in marriage. Following her marriage, Fatima left Poona and the details of her life after marriage aren’t available.” On 7 October 2023 Anjuman-i-Islam in Mumbai, one of the oldest and most respectable educational institutes, celebrated Reeta’s work.

Referring to the much-needed focus on Fatima Sheikh, the author felt that history has traditionally been written by men and upper caste historians which is why women are the obvious losers when it comes to getting recognition. Senior journalist Mohammed Wajihuddin quoted political leaders and activists of Maharashtra who are proud today that Fatima is finding her place in the sun. “It is nice to hear Fatima and her brother Usman came from the weavers’ community. Even if history does not record them as Ansaris, we consider them as our own. We will do our best to make the new generation aware of their work,” said Pervez Ansari, general secretary of All India Momin Conference, a pre-Independence nationalist body comprising weavers, who shared thoughts with Wajihuddin. In Andhra Pradesh, Syed Naseer Ahamed wrote a book on Fatima in Telugu in 2021.

“I had to depend a lot on oral history and scanty references scattered in books and essays,” he said. The time-line provided at the start of Reeta’s book is an invaluable guide: In 1847, Savitri became a qualified teacher and it was in 1848 that Jyotirao and Savitri set up the first school for girls at Bhidewada in Poona. In 1848, schools were set up at Mahar Wada, Hadapsar, Otur and Saswad in Poona. By 1852, eighteen schools had been established in Satara, Ahmednagar and Mazgaon. On the personal front, these were years of domestic turmoil and Jyotirao-Savitri were asked to leave home by Jyotirao’s father Govindrao, obviously for engaging in anti-caste activities and upsetting Brahminical dominance.

Unfazed by this opposition and resultant hardship, in 1852 Savitribai started the Mahila Seva Mandal, and the following year the first-ever infanticide prohibition home was established in India. She continued working for the cause of widow remarriage and their safety, starting a home for lower and upper-caste widows in 1854. “Women’s education was considered to be against dharma,” said Reeta, adding, “women from lower castes were forced to dance for Brahmin men and their status was pronounced as worse than animals. Widows would get raped. They would then be shamed into suicide. Can you believe that this was our world less than two hundred years ago? The story of Savitribai Phule is set in this time. And that is why it is important.”

Few would be aware that Dr BR Ambedkar, when writing ‘Who were the Shudras?’ in 1946 and discussing the Shudra varna in detail, had dedicated his seminal work to Jyotirao Phule, whom he considered his mentor. “Chaturvarna would have been a very innocent principle if it meant no more than mere division of society into four classes. Unfortunately, more than this is involved in the theory of Chaturvarna. Besides dividing society into four orders, the theory goes further and makes the principle of graded inequality,” he wrote. Dr Amb – edkar regarded Phule as one of his three gurus ~ the other two being Buddha and Kabir.

When our globalized world commemorates International Women’s Day, the homage to Savitribai Phule and Fatima Sheikh, the two ‘first women’ teachers, seems not only appropriate but also a timely reminder on how social justice, equality, higher education and upward mobility have brought women on to centre-stage in our casteridden hierarchical society. Come to think of it, in an age when women business leaders like Madhuri Puri Buch, Chanda Kochhar and Indrani Mukerjea ~ elites from the Mum bai megapolis ~ are making headlines for the wrong reasons, lauding the achievements of Savitribai and Fatima seems like an missionary expedition across time, when the glamour of modernity is shamed by the austerity and honesty of the past. Adding more affront was the recent statement of Dilip Mandal, an activist who commented that he had created ‘a myth’ and named her Fatima Sheikh.

“The truth is that Fatima Sheikh never existed; she is not a historical figure. Not a real person. It is my mistake that, during a particular phase, I created this name out of nothing ~ essentially from thin air. I did that knowingly,” Mandal wrote, providing a dose of outrage to the story. Today with the media thriving on controversies and misinformation, buzzwords like women-power and women empowerment create imagery of fier – cely independent women striding across spaces traditionally dominated by men.

And to ima gine if Chanda Kochhar decked in her classy handloom saree and ethnic jewellery were to come face-to-face with Savitribai or Fatima in a TV newsroom, would the once-celebrated Padma awardee have the gumption to even look into the eyes of these teachers from the dusty hinterland? Let it not be forgotten that Savitribai and Fatima had studied English at Mrs Mitchell’s school in Poona and a conversation between the three would surely be possible. One’s imagination runs riot on what would transpire before the teacher-duo would have shaken their heads in despair, and simply walked away to continue tending to their school-duties.

(The writer is a researcher writer on history and heritage issues and a former deputy curator of Pradhanmantri Sangrahalaya)