FATIMA SHEIKH
1. Context
On her 192nd birth anniversary, we remember the life and contributions of Fatima Sheikh, pioneering Muslim woman educator and a collaborator with Savitribai and Jyotirao Phule.
2. About Fatima Shiekh
Fatima Sheikh, often a lost figure in Indian history, was a pioneering teacher, anticaste activist, proponent of girls’ education, and social reformer in 19th century Maharashtra. Along with Savitribai and Jyotirao Phule, she started the first girls’ school in the country, in spite of loud, threatening opposition.
3. Befriending Savitribai and starting a girls’ school in Pune
- Fatima Sheikh befriended Savitribai when the two were enrolled in a teachers’ training programme by American missionary Cynthia Farrar.
- While in the programme, both developed a bond over their politics and mission to educate those who had been traditionally denied knowledge and education.
- In 1848, Savitribai, Fatima and Jyotirao opened the first school for girls inside the premises of Fatima’s home in Pune.
- Savitribai and Fatima took on the work of teaching a small group of girls there, with the help of Farrar, who at the time was based in Ahmednagar.
- Other schools for Dalits and women followed, with Fatima and Savitribai going to individual families across the town in attempts to persuade them into enrolling their children.
4. Standing strong amidst fervent opposition
- In Pune, a conservative bastion of Marathi culture and tradition, the very act of trying to educate the underprivileged caused uproar.
- It is said that the two women would often have stones and pieces of dung thrown at them while walking in the streets.
- Fatima specifically is said to have borne the wrath of both uppercaste Hindus and orthodox Muslims.
- Under pressure from upper castes, Jyotirao’s father evicted Savitribai and Jyotirao from the family home in the late 1840s.
- With nowhere else to go, the Phules would find shelter at the house of Mian Usman Sheikh, where they would live till 1856.
- As many from their own community abandoned them, Fatima Sheikh and her brother stood strongly with the Phules and the mission to educate girls and bahujans.
5. An elusive figure
- Unfortunately, many details of Fatima Sheikh’s life and pioneering work have been lost.
- Unlike the Phules, who left behind a treasure trove of literature in the form of personal diaries, notes, letters, poems and books, no surviving documents of Fatima Sheikh are available today.
- Even among Muslim icons, she is often forgotten, with figures such as Syed Ahmed Khan, who established the Aligarh Muslim University, dominating discourse on education and social reform.
For Prelims
| For Prelims: Fatima Shiekh, Savitribai Phule and Jyotirao Phule, Syed Ahmed Khan, Aligarh Muslim University and American missionary Cynthia Farrar. |
Source: The Indian express
